The Weird and Wonderful World of Marketing

Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Brand Funnel, Return on Investment (ROI)…there seems to be so many ‘schools’ of marketing you’d be forgiven to think its full of jargon and useless ‘pictures and ads’ (or coloring-in as its described in many other departments).

On some level, you would be right! Marketing evolves at the speed of light. There’s always a new technique, a new theory, a new marketing tool/platform that promises to ‘increase your ROI by 80%, generate new leads, launch your brand equity to an all time high’. The fact of the matter is that it’s YOUR customer needs that are constantly changing – marketing is being forced to find new ways to keep up.

Cast your mind back 5 years…Instagram and Facebook were in their infancy; mobile apps were slow to be taken up and weren’t trusted and e-marketing was a key channel for many companies. Fast forward to 2018 and smartphone business has shot through the roof, intelligent algorithms follow you around online like tiny stalking robots, hoovering up all your online habits and collecting those cookies like golden nuggets and platforms like Facebook generate significant revenue or brand exposure for a company. Imagine, there are millionaires walking about from simply selling fidget spinners on Amazon for $1 a piece!

A key notion I have noticed within the marketing world…many get caught up in their own bulls*it. It’s a key theme for many companies. Unfortunately, most of it stems from setting out to try and gain business without creating any real (or SMART if you want to be specific) objectives.

Then comes the blame game when huge costs are incurred by marketing. In most companies (not all) when everything starts to go wrong, when the balance sheet doesn’t look healthy and money is frivolously put into ‘creating’ extra roles or hiring agencies that promise ‘unique creative’ campaigns – marketing is normally the first area many look to cut when the waves get rough. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s never nice to be told you’re being made redundant (I know the feeling!) but in some cases, its necessary.

I hear the cries of Why?! Well, its in that situation that many marketers realise that increasing ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ isnt a great metric to measure the marketing spend against, or increasing ‘brand exposure’ isn’t the revenue stream the CEO is looking for. It was in that scenario that I learnt – you must justify the cost to the return. Businesses are not kept afloat or grow from intangible benefits that many marketers think are a great benchmark.

I read somewhere that modern day marketers must think as creatively as a designer, as astute as a finance director and as objectively as a CEO. I wholeheartedly agree – the level that many marketing strategies and plans have to satisfy and meet objectives is many, so its only right that you can think with many different ‘heads’ to ensure you don’t fall flat when the questions come up from the various departments and senior members (and believe me, questions always arise no matter how good your marketing is!).

Whatever your background and knowledge in marketing is, there is a resounding acknowledgement that we are the first ones to be approached when a business wants to increase its exposure and success and the first to be interrogated when the figures are not jumping upwards.

#marketing