When I saw the LinkedIn post from today’s master declaring, “Marketing is not about driving revenue,” I brightened a bit and thought, “She gets it!“
We struck up a conversation, and I made a discovery Complete pharmacopoeia of hard-to-swallow tablets. “I love talking smack about marketing!” She smiled.
I asked for the three harshest truths marketers need to hear. And, folks… it’s time to take your medicine.
Muni Olodi
Founder, Educator at Mo Martech
- Fun Fact: Mooney hails from the same town as Edward Norton, Aaron McGruder, Christian Siriano, and Drosky. (Did you know it without Googling?)
Lesson 1: Marketing is not about driving revenue.
Every CMO in the audience just stuck to the “unsubscribe” button. Stay here with us.
“The problem with being product-focused is that your marketing can feel like you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall,” Olodi says. “You just chase all day. ‘They didn’t click on my email, let me move on to the next topic, and see if it worked. And you jump and jump and jump. ‘“
She points out that instant gratification within digital marketing has created a generation of marketers who have never been taught the basics. Which doesn’t work.
“I was raised in the digital marketing space. I didn’t know a time before. And when I went to grad school, I realized: We’re not really marketing. We are sending content and getting leads. But we’re not building relationships, communicating effectively, and trying to build commitment.
“You can’t serve two masters. If I serve the CEO, it’s revenue. If I’m going to serve the customer, I have to slow down. I have to be patient.”
Lesson 2: Demand is not a general strategy.
“The word ‘strategy’ gets thrown around a lot and it’s hell. Demand General is not strategy. Demand General is. execution of a strategy. “
Let me know if this next part sounds familiar.
“A typical marketing campaign is: Let’s pick a topic, create content around that topic, then collect leads and equity. Email the crap Until they die. This is not a strategy.
“Jokes pose against the Do Real beauty campaign. A multi-year, persistent story based on the consumer psychology of women who don’t feel beautiful in their bodies because of beauty standards.” He is A strategy. “
Instead of one-off pieces of content that jump from topic to topic, all marketing efforts—whether lead gen, demand gen, or brand awareness—feed back to Dove’s core message.
And the message didn’t come from a pigeon simply throwing spaghetti at a wall until they found a noodle that stuck.
Olivade describes the process: “I’m hearing my audience say they’re afraid to move forward with new software. They’re worried about a lack of resources. This is my campaign to counter the messaging. These are the activities that support this campaign. We need trials to run for a year. Six months if you want to mark. If you want to mark. Agree? Then You hang. “
It’s slow. This is difficult. It’s hard work. And since AI allows competitors to flood every channel with self-seeded slop, it’s the only thing that will stand.
Lesson 3: Technology Sec.
“Technology won’t fix your marketing problems,” says Olodi. “People think I’m an anti-technologist. i am not (The technology is) just out of order.”
Whether it’s AI, analytics software, or even (GULP) your CRM, it’s important to understand that these are the tools that work. Why should these tasks come first?
“Technology is only going to execute, manage and operate. It only works when it supports good, uh, foundational marketing principles. So if you don’t understand your market, if you don’t have confidence in your message, if you don’t understand your audience psychologically, emotionally, culturally, you have to go back to the drawing board.”
And once you’ve got all that, you can set your tools on autopilot, right? Not enough.
“We need to add those human touches to all these digital tactics. (Currently,) we send to a 10-touch automated nurture campaign and then see if there’s an intent to buy.
“What if, instead, you invited them to a small, intimate focus group? Or to a premiere event? Some kind of human touch where they saw you face to face. Are they more likely to open the email?”
And here we discover that ancient marketing wisdom has been almost lost to the ages:
“People buy from people. People buy from people they like, trust, have a relationship with. The more you do that, the more successful you are.”
He He is Marketing work.
