Why Does Our Marketing Suck?

"Why does our marketing suck?" A common question I receive during consultations. Well not exactly that, sometimes it's "our marketing sucks and we don't know why"

Or "We need to do something about marketing, we just don't know what"

I understand.

Marketing is first to blame and this made the average CMO tenure shortest in C-level.

But my interpretation of this fact is slightly different. Marketing is the first body of the organization to show symptoms of disarray.

First to show signs of an unclear strategy or lack of buy-in on one.

A marketing plan is indeed as good as your business plan.

It's a reflection of it.

Let me elaborate.

Your entire business model and how you choose to allocate resources will definitely show on your growth &/ marketing plan. Even the team you choose to work on the plan itself. Be it sales, marketing, or how you achieve income.

I understand that, put this way, marketing may sound like a vulnerability that one will not risk much with. (But CMO being the shortest tenure obviously says otherwise)

I believe that growth should be smoother when resources are allocated properly, even within your growth or marketing department itself.

The equation of being cost-efficient and revenue-maximized starts taking place faster when your strategy is both perfect for you, and marketing is mirroring it.

Other common phrases I got were "our strategy is not working" and even "we enhanced the strategy and it's still not working"

The issue with that is exactly the core principle of your growth department, they are all front-liners. Their work shows up like *a snap* in front of people.

If there are any:

• Misunderstanding
• Misalignment
• Mislocation

It shows fast!

The organizational perspective on this is crucial:

Everything we choose, shows in our marketing.

Between the metrics you choose to express how your organization grows, and how you choose to pursue them, this is the intersection I work in. I realized years ago that this is where things get real. Right or wrong.

My choice to be a growth marketing consultant in that aspect is to help you with diagnosing & optimizing the chain that connects:

1. What you need & the metrics you chose for it (not always the same thing)
2. What you have & how you're putting it to work (resources & operations)
3. Who is on your team & how they're putting it to work (i.e.: "We need more content to grow, we hired someone" has two big assumed variables. You could be right or wrong about either, you should be right on both. Replace "content" with other roles to see it.)
4. What you are getting right now (the right or wrong metrics are moving, or no metrics moving at all)

Thank you for reading.

If you feel you could use some help, feel free to send me a message for an exploratory call!