The Truth About Marketing

Is Marketing A Big Waste of Time?

A long, long time ago in a field far away (well, the University of Ulster at Coleraine to be honest), there was a young man sitting with his friends in the university coffee bar. After the usual Times crossword, coffee from a polystyrene cup and the obligatory Toffee Crisp, he announced to his friends that he would never work in Marketing.

Well, that person was me. It was 1991, almost a quarter of a century ago (GULP!) and the world and his wife, especially those studying anything related to business studies wanted a career in marketing. Yet here I was pontificating that I wasn’t going to follow the herd. I didn’t stop there either…

So what brought me to such an abrupt conclusion? I had only just finished my first ever marketing module. Let’s call it ‘Marketing 101’ and the fact I only received a score in the 40s probably had something to do with it. Deeper than this, however, was my perception that marketing was simply a lot of common sense dressed up with a lot of big words. It was my hypothesis that I could spell out this common sense in a simple manner and score low or spell it out dressed up with a lot of big words and score well. Where was the sense in that I pondered? Even my Quantitative Methods class appeared more interesting now, because at the end of the day there was always a right and a wrong answer. Perish the thought!

So Why Am I Telling You All This?

Why am I reminiscing about my student days when I should be focused on the task at hand and trying to discover the truth about marketing? Well, the truth is that back then I really did think this was the truth about marketing. I didn’t see myself learning anything that would ever be applicable in my future career.

Roll on a few years and I was working in a local bank and about to get one of the most coveted transfers in the bank… a transfer to the Bank’s marketing department.

My response? Oh, quite a self-assured phone call to the Bank’s personnel manager to tell them I didn’t want it. I always was a person with the strength of my convictions, however, on this occasion I am glad that the Bank got their way. On I went kicking and screaming, but under the tutelage of a brilliant head of marketing and an inspirational chief executive I knuckled down and began to learn my trade.

I sure am glad I did because let’s face it, marketing now pays my mortgage! Having been the person who said he would never work in marketing, I have actually been fortunate enough to spend my entire career in marketing. My fifteen years as an ‘employee’ centred around Banks, Accountancy Firms and Lawyers and the last six have been building Enlighten IC, a full service agency delivering branding, pr and digital marketing to a wide range of businesses in sectors such as tyre distribution, education, telecoms, engineering and even a superb private ambulance business.

So why the change of heart? What made me suck it up and go against my initial view of marketing? Am I a hypocrite? Have I simply pushed paper for all those years in return for a pay check? Even worse, have I turned into one of those bull-sh1tters I criticised all those years ago?

Common Sense

Well, from an outsiders’ point of view I can see how people would still think this about marketing because at the end of the day marketing is still just common sense which is then executed through a series of tactical initiatives. I still meet business owners today and watch them glaze over at the very thought of marketing - I also recognise that same look I had back in the early 90s.

Everybody Owns Marketing

I am often humbled when I meet, say a tyre man who has worked in his field for over 25 years, and they come up with a first rate idea for a campaign, or sit in awe when a man of the cloth working in the education sector delivers a master class on how to communicate with your audience.

You see, marketing isn’t the sole preserve of those working in marketing, let’s call them the ‘marketing professionals’. Marketing is owned by everyone. This doesn’t mean the marketing professionals don’t know what they’re talking about as they will understand exactly how to execute the perfect campaign. What I am trying to say is that everyone needs to get involved. A client can’t just say, I want a campaign now deliver it. They need to learn the art of the brief to educate their agency on what the issues are and what objectives they are trying to achieve. Similarly, an agency can’t just say ‘we know marketing, we can do anything’. If only it was that easy…

Open Minds & Partnership

People working in marketing don’t own marketing they are merely the custodians, or better still, the facilitators. Of course we can be pretty darn good at coming up with the ideas and executing the campaigns as this is what we do after all, however, some of the best ideas come from those who have worked in their industry man and boy and know every single nuance about how their business works. This insight is priceless.

To the enlightened few the best Client/ Agency relationships need to be viewed as a partnership with everyone listening to see what we can learn from one another, never mind the audience.

Knowledge & Understanding

Marketing success is heavily dependent on knowledge and understanding of your market. Sun Tzu once said “If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” This is solid advice so before we embark upon our marketing endeavours we need to take a moment and try to understand what we’re getting ourselves into.

The Real, Real Truth About Marketing

What I have come to believe and indeed have often preached about over the last quarter of a century is that the real truth about marketing comes down to strategy. If you don’t have a strategy you haven’t a clue where your marketing is taking you. Pretty foolhardy really but to be honest with you this is one of the biggest complaints about marketing.

One of the biggest reasons I see people rolling their eyes about marketing is that they hear people pontificating about what their sexy new campaign is going to do for them. Quite often this is just hype and when it doesn’t work or deliver what the client wants all credibility is lost.

What’s the point agonising over a beautiful font, a killer message or even the scale of media exposure if we don’t really know what we are trying to achieve? These are all just tactical elements. Important elements yes, but without a strategy in place these initiatives are simply fluff. Might work, might not. Who knows? Period.

The next problem is getting people to accept this and even if they do they argue that to build their strategy would take too long, cost too much or lead to a 300 page report that lies in a drawer and no-one ever reads.

Not so, I have always believed that,

To me, this is where the real problem about marketing lies. I was the skeptical person thinking marketing was just pink and fluffy. I sat outside the fence for a long time but I was very fortunate that my career exposed me to the successes that a succinct, well crafted strategy can bring.

I finally got it!

And that’s it. When you get marketing you really get it. We need more and more business owners to see past the pink and fluffy veneer that surrounds marketing and realise that at its core marketing is a strategic function with the ability to make or break your business.

If you are reading this and wondering what to do next I implore you to take time out NOW and start to pull your marketing strategy together. If you struggle with this get in touch and let us know, as we have developed a no-nonsense approach to marketing planning that can delve into your company’s psyche, isn’t going to take forever, cost the earth or deliver a 300 page report. We call it MAP, your “Marketing Action Plan”, and it dips in, understands your business and then pulls together an action plan that once executed will put your marketing on the right road.

A Final Word About Marketing

Before you condemn marketing as this pink and fluffy nonsense and the sole preserve of the men and women in black suits, think it through and learn from my own personal experiences. If your company’s marketing is whimsical and based on knee-jerk reactions then yes, it probably is pink and fluffy. If, however, you take the time to put a plan in place and know where you want to go then your marketing can really help to deliver some very special results for your business.

Let me reiterate one more time that this doesn’t need to be a 300 page report. If you ask the right questions and make sure you give some pretty honest answers your chances of marketing success will increase substantially.

So there you go, a bit of a ramble through the early part of my mis-guided career, a bit of a rant about my beloved profession and here we are…

Fast forward 24 years and ask me the same question and you would probably hear me saying, “Sure marketing is still full of bull-sh1tters, but isn’t every industry?”

Ask me if I would embark upon the same career and, “Absolutely, one hundred and ten percent YES!”. I am just as passionate now, if not more passionate, about what marketing can do for a business as I was the day it finally clicked for me. With the wrong foundations in place and your marketing will flounder. With the right foundations in place and your business will soar.

So, that my friends, is my personal view on the ‘Truth About Marketing’. Get it right and your business will rock, get it wrong and you will be sitting scratching your head trying to work out what went wrong.

Photo Credit: Original Image M01229: Amended UnderCreative Commons