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Businesses Have Had Enough of Bad Marketing

Jon-Mikel Bailey  •  October 2, 2024

The State of Marketing Is Poor, But It Doesn’t Have to Be

I’m hearing the same story over and over again from business owners and marketing directors. Let me know if this sounds familiar:

A business needs to get more leads. It asks a marketing firm for help with what they need.

Customer: “We need to boost traffic to our website. So, we need some help with our SEO.”

Marketing Firm: “Great, we’re amazing at SEO. We can drive lots of traffic to your website, but it will take some time. We usually see results in the first 6-8 months.”

End scene. Can you tell where things went wrong? It all comes down to one word… need. The customer asked for help with what they “need.”

How do they know that traffic to their website is what they need? How do they know that SEO is the solution to their problem? They are jumping ahead, and it happens all the time. 

And it’s not just SEO. It could be social media, ads, content, etc. The issue is not the tactic, it’s the fact that everyone is jumping ahead to the one tactic that they believe they need.

What’s Wrong with Marketing Today?

The biggest marketing issue today is that everyone is in a big hurry. No one wants to do the prep work. 

It’s like painting your living room. Sure, you can skip the prep and just start painting, but you will end up with a big mess. Paint on the couch, paint on the carpet, bad edges. 

And who has time for bad edges???

spilled paint insinuating bad marketing

Marketing is the same. If you skip the prep work, you will end up with bad messaging, ineffective campaigns, and a mess of a website. And who has time for a bad website???

So, when you reach out to a marketing agency and tell them you need SEO or social media, or whatever, you are missing out on the most valuable thing they offer—their experience and expertise

If they are any good at what they do, they should be the ones helping you determine what you actually need. 

Hiring a Marketing Firm Is NOT the Same as Ordering Takeout

I don’t know when this happened. But somewhere along the line, marketing agencies have turned into order takers. 

Marketing Agency: “How can I help you?”

Customer: “I need more website traffic.”

Marketing Agency: “OK, great. Your order will be ready in 6-8 months.”

Six to eight months later…

Marketing Agency: “Order up!”

Customer: “This isn’t what I ordered!”

Marketing Agency: “You asked for more traffic, and we got you more traffic.”

Customer: “Yeah, but I’m not getting any sales.”

Marketing Agency: “Sounds like you have a sales problem, not a marketing problem.”

End scene. This isn’t how marketing is supposed to work. Where was the discussion? Where’s the strategy? Where’s the research and planning?

What about brand, ICP (ideal customer profile), story, outcomes, conversion optimization, user experience, and so forth?

So, why do we all keep doing this? Here are my theories:

  1. We’ve all become armchair marketing experts fueled by bad advice. 
  2. Everyone is in a hurry and wants an easy button.
  3. We’ve been told about that one service that works like magic.
  4. For some reason, we keep thinking that if you build it, they will come. 

It’s Time for a Brand-First Awakening

I started with Brand3 in April. It is hands-down the best company I have ever been a part of. Why? Because we insist on doing things differently. And we think you should, too.

I have been networking and talking to lots of business owners. The stories I hear all sound like some version of the ones I outlined above.

You might think it’s not that simple. After the 30th version of that same basic story, I’m not so sure it isn’t. Everyone seems intent on skipping the prep work. 

This is where brand comes in. Brand is perception

  • Are you known? 
  • How are you known? 
  • What are you known for? 
  • Who knows you?
  • Why would they want to know you?
  • How does it feel to know you?

If the answers to these questions aren’t the answers you want, you have a problem that tactical marketing efforts alone will not fix. 

Your brand is your business’s foundation. And without a solid foundation, you are building on very shaky ground. 

Being Known

What is the state of your brand today? What does your website traffic look like? How about online conversions? What is your NPS (net promoter score)? What’s the user experience? How does it all look and feel?

Lots of marketing firms will be able to tell you the numbers, but they will often skip the context of those numbers. What story is the data trying to tell you?

  • If your website traffic is high, is it the right kind of traffic? Are those visitors converting to leads?
  • If your website traffic is low, why is it low? Is someone else getting all of that traffic? How?

Don’t just look at the data. Work out the story. If you’ve ever watched any crime dramas, it’s like those corkboards that all the cops stand and stare at. 

suspect storyboard

There are pictures of suspects. Strings connect the dots. And you’ll even see pieces of paper with questions on them. 

What’s the connection? Why is this happening? What does it mean? 

A list of suspects isn’t enough to solve a crime. You need to figure out the story of what happened. This is how you solve the crime that is the state of marketing today. You have to work out the story. 

Your Marketing to Date

If any of this rings true, try a little exercise. This is from a worksheet offered as part of the Before You Market book experience

Do a quick marketing self-assessment, and be brutally honest. 

  1. Define the audience for your current marketing efforts. 
  2. Make a quick list of all the ways you’ve been marketing your business to that audience. 
  3. Identify your most successful marketing effort. Why was it successful?
  4. Identify the marketing effort that was the biggest waste of time. Why was it a waste of time?
  5. What do these results tell you about the needs and desires of your ideal customers? Both positive and negative.

This is the outline for your story. This is the beginning of developing a solid marketing strategy.

Why You Need Marketing

Most businesses, as we’ve established, think you need marketing as some machine to run tactical exercises. Marketing, to most, is a plug and play exercise. 

That’s not why you need marketing. You need marketing to solve a brand problem. You need marketing to tell you if you are known and in what way.

And then you need marketing to amplify what is working and fix what isn’t. This takes thinking, problem solving, and hard work. We want you to rethink marketing. Are you in? Let’s talk!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jon-Mikel Bailey is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Brand3, a branding and marketing agency that takes your marketing from noise to clarity. Jon has worked in the marketing industry for 25 years. In his role here, Jon is responsible for marketing the firm and consulting with clients on brand strategy. He also manages all business development and client engagement efforts. Jon is a writer, speaker, and consultant. He has been published in MarketingProfs, MarTech.org, SpinSucks, {Grow}, Social Media Today, and more. He has spoken at the Digital Summit Series, MarketingProfs, ITE, Grant Thornton, and others. He has a beautiful wife and daughter who are nuts like he is. And he plays the drums in his free time.

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