I was preparing for a new pitch to a potential client and decided that I would tell them how they can fail at marketing their product or service. By doing the opposite of what they’d expect, I hope to grab their attention and teach them a valuable lesson.
How to fail at marketing consisted of seven slides with seven themes. Here is a quick summary of what I shared.
How to Fail at Marketing
- Expect results immediately. Don’t be patient. You have starved your business for the last three years of any marketing investment, so expect to have more revenue overnight from spending a few dollars upgrading your website. Keep asking me why you haven’t gotten more revenue after the first few months of work.
- Don’t involve sales in the discussions. If you invest in marketing, expect it to be like magic fairy dust that you spread all over the business, and suddenly more orders come in the front door. Don’t include the head of sales in the lead generation discussion and process. Keep all business development people out of our meetings about the integration of sales and marketing.
- Start with tactics, don’t worry about a strategy. Who needs a roadmap or plan or destination? Just throw stuff at the problem without it tying back to a transparent approach. Don’t forget to do all the latest things you read online about marketing. Bring buzzwords to the discussion because your cousin said social media is free and TikTok is cool. Tactics are all that matter, who needs a plan?
- Don’t worry about being different. Since everyone in the industry does the same thing, it won’t matter if you communicate your point of difference, everyone buys based on price anyway. Who needs to worry about a message, when what you need to do is just blast emails out until people respond to your pleas? Being different is irrelevant to the problem at hand since you need to interrupt prospects by annoying them with emails and ads that aren’t helpful.
- Follow the leader. Why do something novel and original when all you need to do is be a copy of the industry’s top players. Do what they do. Don’t find any approach that offers a fresh take on the prospect’s problem. Originality is overrated and who cares about word of mouth. Just do what everyone else does, and you’ll succeed by imitating others.
- Cut the marketing effort at the first sign of trouble. Of course, marketing is the problem. That VP of sales which you have had for five years who never hit her target couldn’t possibly be the problem. Don’t listen to the advice of others to grow your brand by restructuring into a more effective organization. Since you can’t ever measure marketing ROI, why not just cut back so you can reach your quarterly goals. Yep, that sounds smart.
- Keep doing the same thing that hasn’t worked. Who knows, maybe the seventh time is the charm. The same approach can’t be wrong, so why not just keep at it, buckle down and power through the problem. Sure, that’s the solution. Keep pushing water up a hill. That always works.
Are you failing at marketing and not growing your business? Maybe it is time for a fresh perspective from someone who can objectively audit what you are doing right and what you may be doing wrong.
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. Visit my website at www.themarketingsage.com The conversation is free, and we can explore working together.
Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash
