Don’t let these tricks take over – or even ruin – your marketing

One of the most challenging, and often frustrating, parts of marketing is that most people feel like they are pretty good marketers, even if they have never studied or worked in the field. This is tricky, as great marketing is not about random tactics or ideas, but about execution of a set of ideas that come together in a strategic marketing mix. The ideas you leverage in marketing are almost irrelevant – as I believe a good marketer can take almost any idea from a CEO, investor, etc. and make it part of a well executed and successful marketing plan. 

But execution can often become hard when a marketer is asked to work on multiple tactics, which have little or even no value, because of influence outside the organization. Shown below are the two examples I see frequently, which take marketing off track because while the message is compelling, they aren’t where most marketers should be spending their time.

Get found online, like never before!

The email normally goes something like this:  

Dear X (often the CEO or functional business leader, not someone in marketing), Congrats on X award (or something else to make them believe they know something about your company). As a company with such presence in XYZ industry (again, showing more expertise), I’m surprised you aren’t ranking better in Google. I have looked at numerous keywords for your company and noticed you’re not ranking as number one. I can fix that. 

Another version (example) can be found here:

Now your CEO gets this, is frustrated with your digital marketing and asks you (marketing leader) to talk to the company. However, the CEO doesn’t realize that the sender is often the worst to have dealing with for your digital programs, and that they are blasting company after company with the same message. And it likely came from a sales rep being paid to schedule meetings - someone who has no idea how to do digital marketing. This is a trap that preys on senior executives who can’t spend their whole day focused on marketing, but also don’t want their company to be positioned below competitors. 

Any why not take the call? What could 10 minutes hurt? Because it’s a complete waste of time, since they are simply pitching digital marketing services or software. And these emails come in so frequently that, over time, you could be taking multiple useless calls every week. If your current program truly isn’t working, you should instead be using references and referrals to find a great digital agency. (We use a company called Obility B2B if you’re looking for someone to help with your digital marketing.)  

We know every one of your buyers, and when they are buying!

The next is even worse, and something you’ll likely have to deal with on an even more regular basis. In this play, a data company sends an email to every executive in the company saying something like this:

Dear X (again, often the CEO or functional business leader), I have been following your business and know you are looking for customers who (are in XYZ industry, who use XYZ software, who are competitors of yours, etc.). We have a list of XYZ customers that is up-to-date, accurate, and verified. Even better, you only pay for the emails that work.

Some of these emails may even claim they know the buyers who are actively searching. 

I believe that leaders who receive these emails know that, if there truly was an easily list of buyers out there, the marketing team would have purchased it, and that it’s too good to be true. But, I also believe they often feel the risk of not buying a potentially magic list outweighs the cost. This is where you have to help put the team at ease, and let them know that this is not a magical list, and instead, truly just a waste of money. 

But wait, the email said they were verified, and you only pay for what emails work. This may sound like value, but it’s not. Essentially, a company can scrape all the public facing customers from a website, and then download relevant titles - from a list provider for those companies - that you’d want to buy. Instead of paying the low cost per lead, that you would normally with your current data provider, they can charge a premium because it’s a curated list. One that you likely already have. (In case you are wondering, we use a number of companies to help with our list building and identifying people at our target accounts like Everstring for predictive marketing, ZoomInfo, and LeadGenius.) 

Maria, you’re right, but what can I do?

I think you need to preemptively talk to your leadership about these types of campaigns so that they know you’re on top of it. 

Further, if you want to show them proof that emails like this are just wastes of time, you can share this post with your leaders. 

Finally, sometimes you just have to take a call or buy a list to ensure the company has a positive view about your marketing. Arguing with leadership, or making them feel dumb when they think they have something that works, may cause friction that either causes you to leave or them to show you the door. Instead, sometimes it’s worth running the campaign or taking the call, and then sharing back the results with the team. When the team sees that these programs just eat up time and money, they’ll begin to second guess the messages they’re receiving. And just be careful, because too much of this can ultimately ruin your marketing.

What do you think? Do these emails drive you crazy? Any other campaigns creating issues like the ones mentioned above?

Happy Marketing!

Note - I, and my company, do not get any financial benefit for referral from the companies mentioned above. I simply listed them to share what's working for Apttus, hoping to help others. Image licensed through Getty Images (istock).