The Reality of Living the Marketing Fantasy

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a LinkedIn post that made me chuckle. In the post, the author defined “marketing insanity” as “expecting your audience to do something that you yourself would never ever do.”

The post immediately resonated with me, because I’ve experienced this phenomenon. Even though I’m a seasoned–and pragmatic–marketer, I occasionally get caught up in a fantasy world of sorts, thinking that the audience I’m marketing to will always take the action I want them to take. 

They’ll read my entire email.

They’ll click the CTA.

They’ll give me their email address and download that eBook.

They’ll read that entire eBook, come back to a website, and schedule a call.

Of course, that journey doesn’t always work out the way we hope it will–and that got me thinking about the suspension of disbelief even the most experienced marketers and business owners can have when it comes to marketing actions. There are plenty of times when we believe in something that simply isn’t true–at least, not usually–in an effort to enjoy the story just a little bit longer. 

I’ve made a list of my favorite marketing fantasies below–let me know if any of these sound familiar: 

“As soon as we launch our new website, everyone will see it because of our onsite SEO strategy.”

While it would be nice to be able to give our customers and prospects the keys to our new marketing property through osmosis, we know the truth: having an onsite SEO strategy is helpful, but we also need to focus on driving traffic to the site through a combination of thoughtful messaging and offsite SEO–actions are taken outside your website to impact your rankings with search engines, like social, email, and digital ads, and influencer marketing.

As you reach out to your relevant audiences through the channels they use, that outreach will drive them to your site, which builds authority and activity that Google will recognize. In particular, any activity offsite–i.e. publishing on another platform–tells search engines that you have a page on your site that answers a search query. For example:

Search query: best software for filing your own taxes

Your page: how to file your own taxes

Search engines respond to strong onsite content that answers questions searchers type into a search engine. That’s how you can connect onsite activity to onsite optimization. 

“This webinar topic is fantastic. Everyone who registers is going to show up.”

We’ve all been there. Your company decides to launch a webinar series to deliver helpful, relevant content to your target audience. You get 1,000 sign-ups, but that day, only 35% of them show up for the actual event. While it’s disheartening to put time and effort into an event where there’s low attendance, we have to remember: people are human. They may have had every intention of attending, but got caught up in a last-minute meeting, or had a deadline sprung on them. 

You could deploy a bunch of tactics and messaging to make in-person webinar attendance more appealing–saying that the session won’t be recorded, or you have a limited number of seats. However, there’s usefulness in not having 100% attendance. Attendance is the best outcome, but it’s not the only value of a webinar.

Offering a replay of the webinar is an opportunity for additional engagement, especially if calendars don’t align. I’ve even offered a prospect who can’t make an event the chance to “skip the line” and have a conversation with me directly. Your replay can also be used in other ways that generate leads–on your website as an on-demand option, or as snippets that get used on social media. 

“LinkedIn has really taken off! We have to post to our Company Page as much as possible.”

There are plenty of reasons you should have a LinkedIn Company Page, but sales is not one of them. First, a Company Page can serve as fodder for search engines. When someone searches your organization on the web, your Company Page is one of the results that’ll most likely come up on the first page. Also, a Company Page provides more detail about a personal connection as they’re deciding whether to connect with you individually on LinkedIn. And, the page provides publicity “real estate” for your company content and an opportunity to post your blogs and earned media links.

Here’s what a LinkedIn Company Page won’t do: generate a ready-to-buy lead from your sales team or directly yield a sales conversation. That’s why it’s critical to have engaged leaders and employees creating content and networking through their own personal LinkedIn pages. This offers the one-to-one human connection that your Company Page lacks–and it also reinforces your brand reputation. 

“Our product is so unique and distinctive. How could our customers not purchase?”

Companies spend a fair amount of time thinking about their products and services–specifically, what differentiates our offering from others in the same space. However, most of the time, we’re not the ones shopping for the services we’re providing–so what we believe is unique and distinctive about our products may not be the same story for our actual customers. 

Often, our beliefs are just that–beliefs. The best way to know if your product’s differentiators match up with your customer’s needs is to conduct customer research. Those insights will most likely lead to new and more compelling differentiators that can form the basis of your marketing. 

In an upcoming article, I’ll write more about the value of your brand story, and how that can weave in the elements of how you do what you do. Creating a meaningful and relevant narrative around why you do what you do has a better chance of connecting with the humans you’re reaching with content.

“Oh, that’s way too many emails to send. No one’s going to read them.”

I once had a client with a 24% open rate on their emails–an excellent open rate for their particular industry. That also meant that 76% of their list was not opening their emails. 

I’m not saying that we should bombard that 76% into oblivion until they either open or unsubscribe. I will say that just because you sent one email that wasn’t read doesn't mean they won’t open the next one. The key is to get to know your audience, segment your lists based on what you’ve learned, and send content that makes them feel personally invested in you and what you have to offer. 

“We must not have enough to say because we keep saying the same thing.”

Sometimes, organizations get impatient. Sales may not be happening as quickly as we’d like, or maybe your product or service isn’t quite the household name you want it to be. And when this restlessness happens, our messaging becomes an easy target. It’s stale. It’s not saying what we need it to say. We need it to be more engaging and snappy.

At its core, strong branding–whether visual branding or brand messaging–depends on consistency and clarity around your core value to prospective customers. Frequent and consistent content is not only the best way to ensure people remember your brand, but it’s also what will make it easier for everyone in your organization to communicate with an approved set of talking points. 

Even though we might think we’re saying the same thing over and over, this isn’t how your audience views it. Repetition is essential for bolstering what your brand stands for. Awareness of your brand needs to be built on one foundational element, not 1,000 smaller ones. My platform, for example, is based on spending marketing resources where they work best for a business–not everywhere. So, my messaging around marketing covers many topics, but always circles back to budgeting the right way for the growth you need now. That’s true if I'm talking about branding, performance metrics, or content marketing.

And then you have repetition’s close cousin, consistency. Consistency of quality content, not the quantity being produced. Deep down, I know many marketers wonder if their content all sounds like they’re talking about the same thing over and over. So, they cover an expansive range of topics that they hope will magically say something overarching about their business.

I’d rather my clients have consistent, meaningful content that leverages a high-value idea over and over, than a shiny new lightbulb idea every week. Remember, your various audiences have their own day jobs. We want our content to add value but also to be tied together around a single idea that best represents our value to them. 

Reusing content isn’t lazy. It’s a smart way to focus your message on the value that means the most to the people you want to reach.

“People will buy from us because we’re the first people to do X, Y, and Z.”

This is a marketing fairytale I wish was true. Being the first company to do something is a big deal, and it often takes plenty of innovation and capital to be the first in your market to reach a certain milestone

Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily the “golden ticket” to getting more customers–particularly for smaller, lesser-known brands. It’s a great data point, and something that certainly has a place in your website marketing copy, but simply being first at something isn’t a differentiator. Instead, focus on what truly sets you apart from others in the market–and use your first-place status as a proof point as prospects get further down the sales funnel. 

What accounts for our blind spots?

I don’t think we’re deliberately trying to live out a fantasy. Every company and in-house marketing department I’ve ever worked with truly wants to understand customer behavior, how they make decisions, and how they determine the product or service they’re providing fits customer needs. So, it’s not ignorance, desperation, or hubris. 

My hot take is that there’s a great temptation to look over our shoulders at what competitors are talking about. If I’m delivering insights about how to apply performance data to strategy one day, but someone else in my space is chattering about the importance of branding–which I also believe in–I’m tempted to pivot, get distracted, or feel like I’ve left something out. 

When you define your core value and wrap content in that singular basket, you create a messaging platform that makes for strong content. For example, in a single meeting with me, I can easily talk about how performance metrics help shape effective marketing spending, also noting how and where an emphasis on branding will help achieve KPIs that can also be measured.

I also think it’s optimism. Organizations believe in their brands. They believe in what they do and whom they’re doing it for. And I applaud that optimism–as long as we avoid the fantasies we have about how our customers absorb the content we provide. 

Next up: Can The Minimalists Help Guide Your Approach to Marketing Spending?

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About Ilene Rosenthal

As a fractional CMO, I help ambitious leadership teams say bye-bye to the waste and risk inherent in most marketing plans.

My clients are ambitious B2B CEOs who have marketing and sales teams in place but are still frustrated with the return on their marketing investment.

I also run the Marketing Strategy Lab for small businesses.  

After 16 years in leadership roles on enterprise brands at Y&R, I’m the CEO of White Space Marketing Group, a marketing strategy consultancy established in 2012.

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White Space Marketing Group