Sometimes I think marketing is a con. Occasionally I wonder if what I do for my clients matters at all, or if they would have had the same business outcomes without me. But the truth is more nuanced. Many business owners and C-suite executives are skeptical of marketing so let's cut through the hype and examine the real value of marketing in today's business landscape.
I also have a handy checklist for you to download to check how effective your marketing function is.
Why is it so hard to know if marketing works?
When considering the effectiveness of marketing as a whole, how do we judge either way? It is occasionally a complicated business to prove that "marketing" actually works. Lots of companies are looking for "growth", i.e. more sales, but how do you directly attribute that to the marketing team's activities, and which activities specifically? Why is it so hard?
For digital and online marketing there is LOTS of data (almost too much ), but interpreting this data is open to bias and cherry-picking. However, changing privacy settings means there's going to be less attributable data in the future. On the other hand, it has always been hard to show the exact ROI of things like Public Relations, which may take a while to turn around the reputation of a business and it can be hard to trace a direct through-line from a media article to a sale made. Sometimes a campaign is so immediately successful that there is an instant uptick in business, but other times, it is a slower burn.
Not to mention the fact that different business models have wildly different sales cycles and needs from marketing, a D2C (direct-to-consumer) e-commerce product may see its sales soar after a single effective Instagram influencer campaign. On the other hand, a B2B (business-to-business) professional service consultant may need to do months of careful email nurturing before converting a client. It all depends.
Therefore, you need to know what success means for your business in your particular industry and create your metrics accordingly. Beware the vanity metrics, for they will lead you astray.
Beware of easy fixes
To a certain extent, marketing is a numbers game, but to me, there is nothing more dispiriting than LinkedIn influencers peddling their quick-fix advice of buying hundreds of inboxes and spamming people who don’t know you with automated, AI-personalized emails. If you've ever been on the receiving end of these (my spam folder certainly has), you'll hate them with a red-hot fury too. Lots of output does not equate to effective outcomes.
Equally, I am wary of the hundreds of frameworks and templates available with shiny names that guarantee THE answer to your marketing woes. They are a great start for many small businesses, but they are often overly simplistic and do not guarantee success.
Why marketing is a strategic business function, not just something to spend money on when you can
Internally, businesses often make marketing their last hire, as if it’s just there to put icing on the cake. Or they’ll hire someone when things aren’t working anymore so marketing has to fix a problem rather than build on strong foundations. Often marketing is seen as a delivery team who can do pretty flyers and emails, rather than a strategic business function. They are seen as a cost center where you spend money when you can because you don't see ROI.
And if that’s how you think of marketing, that’s exactly what you’ll get. But if marketing works WITH sales, with the product team, and with the customer support team, maybe it can help bring everything together in a cohesive way that makes the whole bigger than the sum of its parts. It can spot ways to make customers more loyal by helping the customer support team better articulate the brand’s strengths. It can speed up the sales cycle by making sales emails more compelling and aligning with the initial marketing customers have seen. It can help improve the product by listening to what customers say on social media and feeding that back. Marketing is more than just advertising.
However, good holistic marketing is hard. Consistency is half the battle. Proving your marketing is effective is often just as hard. Clients and bosses understandably want results ASAP when they’re investing money. But sometimes the problem is that what they’re invested in wasn’t the problem in the first place. Or maybe it was, but once that is solved, there’s a problem with the next step which means more investment is required. Also, some of the strengthening marketing does isn’t easily measured - how to quantify the product innovation that marketing inspired and customers love?
Marketing = messy people trying to make other messy people do things
The real problem is, that marketing deals with people and people are messy. You try pushing them in one direction and they might go the opposite way. You make your best guess with the data you have available, you try something to reach a goal, you measure the results and you iterate. You try to use your experience and “expertise” but what worked in other places and other times might not work this time. Beware the industry “expert” who claims to have done this one thing for hundreds of clients JUST like you and it transformed their business. They’re probably trying to sell you a course, or a template, or a copy/paste package, and if you buy it TODAY, you can get 25% off. Beware the marketer who is too slick at sales.
Marketing is a con if you buy a silver bullet. Marketing is a con if you think doing one thing will fix your business. Marketing is a con if you think it’s quick and easy. So treat marketing like you would any other business function and see it for what it is - a slog, a long-term business function to be treated like your finance team or HR. You’ll have the most fun if you take marketing seriously.
Let me know what you think and I'm always open to a chinwag about the importance of strategic marketing!
Great post!