Marketing's value isn't in just "doing." It's in data collection, experimentation, building and orchestrating.
I recently ran in to a piece called “The Big Agency Lie” that goes through the challenges ad agencies face with ‘billable hours.’
There’s a deeper problem with how businesses view marketing and advertising. Somewhere along the so-called evolution of marketing, “creating buzz,” “building awareness” and “make my post go viral” became acceptable goals of marketing campaigns. “The Big Agency Lie” could really be called “The Big Marketing Lie” and we marketing professionals allowed it to happen.
Random Acts Of Marketing
Random acts of marketing happen all around us. The product team tells us they need a video for YouTube and we jump on it. A department head needs a banner ad created by next week and in an effort to show our value, we get it done the next day. It’s no wonder that business leaders are losing faith in marketing. It’s no wonder that ad agencies have to sell “hours” and not ideas.
Here's the simple truth: If we don’t tie marketing and advertising to a specific outcome, we will fail. But we have to really define “specific outcome.” Here’s a hint, a specific outcome isn't to “create buzz.” A specific outcome is measurable, time bound and includes pivot points. And here’s the beauty in building outcomes this way; if we try something and we’re wrong? We now have data points to help us re-calibrate and try again.
The result of these random-acts-of-marketing is that we marketing professionals have become commoditized. I was once asked in an interview if I could: create web sites, make videos, build apps, design ads and write copy (and a few other things that my memory can’t quite recall)? When I responded with ‘no, but I know how to use resources to get those done,’ I was told “you do realize this is a marketing job you applied for, right?” The expectation was that l would do all of those things and do them well. Would you want your surgeon to be the receptionist? The nurse? The anesthesiologist? All at the same time? No!
Marketing's Value
The value from a marketing professional doesn't come in us being a jack-of-all-trades, rather, value comes from:
Building and owning the buyer’s journey. From understanding who our buyer is, to a potential customer discovering us, all the way through to that customer buying our products/services; rinse and repeat.Orchestrating the tactics that march us towards a those pre-defined, desired outcomes.
We don’t need to know how to build a web site, but we do need to know how to manage the resources, build the strategy and own that customer’s experience with our brand.
We're Scientists Too!
Marketing is equal parts art and science, but somewhere along the way we dropped ‘science’ which is probably another contributing factor to our commoditization. By setting specific, measurable outcomes, analyzing data and taking a thoughtful approach to the buyer’s journey, marketing will shift away from being a commodity.
We have to begin inserting science, experimentation and data back into our strategy and tactics. When we do, we make our brands more authentic, and more relatable to our customers because everything we do is centered on them! Then, if something isn't resonating with them? Our data will show that and we can re-calibrate until we get it right. And that’s a goal worth working towards.
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