It’s not good.
Marketing Department work continues to become more stressful. For several years, Workfront has published a yearly study on stress in Marketing Departments. The 2015 study revealed marketing people are working under an increasing amount of stress. The study reported
80% of the respondents were working under stress
25% indicated that stress had reached critical levels
Prolonged stress can be very harmful. It can lead to serious medical conditions. Some of these are anxiety, high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.
What is causing the increase in stress among marketing people?
The Change in Marketing’s Role
Prior to the Internet and in its early days, Marketing was viewed as a part of the Sales Department. Its main responsibility was to get the company’s name in front of prospective customers. It also prepared reports and printed material for the sales reps to use in their meetings and presentations to prospects and customers. Marketing had very little to do with making actual sales.
As the internet has grown, there has been a tremendous shift. Any prospect can go on-line and get virtually all of the information on a product or service they need. They also can find out quite a bit about a company. They no longer have to get this information from a sales rep.
The prospect is now in charge of the buying process. With all the information they can get on their own, they can pick and choose who they talk to. They can narrow down their list of companies they want to talk to. The days of a sales rep getting in front of a prospect unannounced have virtually disappeared.
How Does a Company Get Its Product or Service in Front of a Prospect?
This is the role of the Marketing Department. Their work has changed dramatically. They have to have a wide variety of marketing pieces to:
introduce the company to each prospect.
start to build trust for the company in the eyes of the prospect.
introduce the product or service to the prospect.
let the prospect know it would be best for them to buy the product or service they need from their company.
Even after they turn the prospect over to the sales reps to make sales, they still have to develop more marketing pieces to help the sales reps succeed.
The company’s executive team is looking more closely now to make sure their marketing is doing the best job for them. So the Marketing people have had to develop ways to track their results. This is reaching critical levels today.
So Marketing responsibility has changed drastically. They have gone from being an adjunct to the sales department to now being a critical part in the success of the company.
The marketing departments of all companies are in the same position. So the Marketing Department in each company is under constant pressure to make sure that their own marketing materials are better than their competitors’.
In most instances, the executive teams at most companies have not kept up with the shift. They are unaware of all of the work their marketing departments have to do. So they have not staffed them properly. The 2015 Workfront study also revealed that 80% of the Marketing Departments surveyed felt they were overworked and understaffed.
All of this has led to the increased stress marketing people are experiencing.
Ways to Reduce Stress
As a Marketing person how is your stress level? Is it high? If it is, you need to take steps to reduce it quickly. An Internet search will give you many ideas of what you can do. Here are some:
- Deliberately get your mind off of work when not working. (Start with 10 or 15 minutes at a time and then gradually increase it.)
- Change your daily routine and do something different.
- Avoid drinking coffee and alcohol
- Become more active physically. (Get out for walks even at lunch time.)
- Get more sleep.
- Eat healthier. Avoid processed foods.
- Do things you enjoy. (Watch a good movie. Have dinner with a friend. Spend quality time with your family.)
- Avoid working on weekends and even thinking about work at that time. (Visualize leaving all of your work behind as you leave your office on Friday and not picking it up again until you get back to your desk on Monday morning.)
- Get away for a weekend periodically.
In addition to the medical conditions stress can cause, it can also age you prematurely. When you’re under continuous stress, you also can not perform as well as you normally can. So start today to take the steps to reduce and even eliminate the stress in your life.
