Rebuilding: The Organizer

So you are an Executive looking to rebuild your marketing department, and you've decided that an analytics-focused individual is the kind of person you want to run your department. And you took the analytics personality quiz a few days ago, so you have a general idea who the five different types of analytics individuals are ... The Organizer ... The Miner ... The Targeter ... The Futurist ... and The Strategist.

Let's assume that you gave this quiz to prospective marketing executive candidates, and you chose to hire an Organizer. What have you accomplished?

Rebuilding your marketing department around an Organizer can be a great decision. Remember, an Organizer loves to collect data from different sources, loves to make sure that the data is accurate, and loves to create dashboards and reports that allow other individuals to make decisions.

If you believe that your customer data infrastructure is broken, then hire an Organizer to run marketing, so long as you give this individual authority over the information technology team. Organizers work well in environments that are a few steps past the entrepreneurial stage. Organizers integrate e-mail marketing with traditional direct marketing. Organizers integrate social media into the existing customer database. Organizers combine offline data with clickstream data.

As a business leader, it is your job to know what your marketing department needs at any point in time. When the need exists to integrate data across all channels, an Organizer will get this job done for you. You may only need this marketing leader for two or three years, and that's ok.

Organizers can also be trusted companions for business leaders who like to make all of the decisions. I once worked with a CEO that needed to make every decision regarding customer analytics. This individual demanded reports and KPIs that were consistent with his way of thinking. He rewarded individuals who audited data for accuracy. He rewarded individuals who provided him with a report that was formatted exactly as he wanted to see it. He rewarded individuals who provided him with the exact customer analysis outcomes he was expecting. In situations like this, the CEO needs to be paired with an Organizer, or the CEO will be highly disappointed with the working relationship.

If your marketing department is in a state of customer analysis chaos, an environment where data is scattered across the enterprise, not linked together in a meaningful manner, then an Organizer is a perfect fit for your rebuilding efforts.