Why STEM Should Be a Priority for Marketing Leaders

by David Lund    

I am directing this blog to leaders in the marketing community.  You have an opportunity to make a difference in a way that can strengthen both your company and the marketing community.

What is STEM?

You may be aware of STEM initiatives in your local school or community.  Your company may even be involved with a STEM program.  What is STEM? It stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.  These are four critical areas where U.S. students lag behind many countries around the globe.

Improving our STEM capabilities has been identified by the U.S. Government as a key step to boost our long-term competitiveness in global business.  Many academic and community programs have been launched to engage and educate U.S. youth with STEM education.  Time Warner and the Boy Scouts of America are two organizations that have recently launched STEM initiatives.

Some of you may be involved in promoting STEM initiatives that have been launched in your company, but these are often run by other departments.

Why is this important to marketing leadership?

It is obvious why efforts to build STEM skills should be important to engineers and scientists.  The direct connection to marketing is less obvious.  In short, CMOs and other marketing leaders need new and current marketing employees to be strong in STEM.  There are many marketing managers in the work force today who are not strong in the marketing application of these skills.

Let’s look at how that makes a difference in successful marketing.  Where can STEM be applied in your marketing initiatives and team?  Here is a sample list of STEM related marketing skills:

Science

• Product improvements
• Product formulation development
• Product testing
• Trend identification
• Market research design and execution
• A/B testing

Technology

• CIO and CMO partnerships
• Identifying and leveraging the insights of ”Big Data”
• Web marketing, social media, and ecommerce
• Database marketing and category management
• Real-time mobile marketing, mobile apps, and geo-targeting
• NFC and mobile ecommerce
• Breakthrough new product technologies
• 3D design and printing technologies

Engineering

• New product design, development, and manufacturing
• Applied materials for new product capabilities and claims
• Packaging improvements and 3D structural design
• Fixture design and development
• Trade show booth design and development

Math

• CFO and CMO partnerships
• Statistical analysis and business projections and forecasting
• Trend identification
• Developing financial models in Excel
• Pre- and post- program analysis
• Retail sales analysis
• KPI and ROI measurement
• Budget planning and management

Not only are these valuable skills for any marketing team, but also many of these skills can help differentiate a brand or company in the marketplace.  Enhancing your team’s skill sets in these areas can help accelerate success in your company – and enhance your workforce overall.

What can/should the marketing leadership community do?

As marketing leaders, we can enhance our own work force and strengthen the skills of the U.S. Marketing community over time. There are many ways you can help create new opportunities or lead your company in adopting new STEM focused initiatives.

Education

• Educate new employees in relevant marketing STEM skills to make them more productive and effective
• Offer tuition reimbursement for employees that take STEM related marketing training courses online or at local schools
• Offer college and grad school internships with a focus on sharing learning in both directions. 
• Offer employee training on STEM related skills such as those on the list above
• Provide mentoring and instruction for local high school students and support high school tech centers and marketing programs such as DECA and FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America)
• Provide education tools for classrooms that provide real world examples of how STEM makes a difference in your industry and company.  Share these with educators and put them on your website.

Community support

• Support your company’s sponsorship of community organizations and programs that teach STEM skills to youth
• Encourage employee involvement with local schools and nonprofits
• Develop your own community focused STEM programs

Communication

• Develop new online content for your website and social media efforts that educate the community on your STEM related initiatives or how STEM makes a difference in your business
• Work with community leaders to communicate the importance of STEM in your company communications and PR
• Talk about the importance of STEM skills and how to develop them in the marketing organizations when you are a member.

Change will not come overnight, but if we if we work together as a community, we can and will develop an even better educated, better trained marketing work force that will help boost U.S competitiveness in our marketplace and around the globe.  You will benefit from the employees and youth that you help develop. You will also benefit when you hire a new employee that was trained in STEM skills by another marketing leader.

With your involvement and continued progress, we can better leverage STEM at the point of commerce.  Let’s add marketing leadership to the list of corporate leaders who are actively working to boost our STEM skills in the workforce – for better results for this year and for many years to come.

************

Don’t miss a MENG Blend post.  Sign up now for direct delivery to your email inbox.

**********

MENG is the indispensable community of executive level marketers who share their passion and expertise to ensure each member’s success.

Learn more – - -  Apply for membership