For every successful marketing campaign, there are probably at least a dozen that fail. I’ve seen this failure and the frustration that comes with it over and over again (thankfully not with many of our clients) during my years in the industry, and it’s painful. I find marketing failure particularly difficult to stomach simply because I know that behind every failed marketing campaign, there’s an entrepreneur or a leader who cares deeply about their company’s success, and I understand exactly how that feels. I’ve been an entrepreneur for nearly my entire career, so I know what it’s like to eat, sleep, live and breathe your business and to put everything you’ve got into ensuring the success of every initiative you pursue. Failing stinks.
But even worse than marketing failure is the fact that most leaders aren’t ever able to get to root cause of their marketing problems. When we meet with prospective clients, they’re often so frustrated with marketing that they’re willing to give up on it altogether. And maybe they would if the health of their company wasn’t so reliant on their ability to build awareness, drive action and convert leads. In some cases, they’ve been burned by another firm that has failed to produce results. In others, they’ve put a ton of their own blood, sweat and tears into their marketing with little to no payoff. The reasons they list for their marketing failure are many and various:
“We don’t have enough budget.”
“Our firm isn’t creative.”
“We’re not active enough on social media.”
…the list goes on.
While factors like these can indeed lead to problems, what most leaders fail to see is that there is almost always a much deeper, darker reason for major marketing failure. I haven’t been keeping a formal count, but I’d be willing to bet my next vacation on the fact that 98.5% of all marketing efforts fail for one of these reasons above all else:
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The business isn’t (actually) innovative.
Most leaders think their companies are innovative. But in reality, very few businesses truly succeed at challenging the status quo. As Scott Shane explains in his fantastic book, The Illusion of Entrepreneurship, “the data show that almost all new businesses produce the same products and services as existing businesses and almost none of them provide a product or service that their founder views as unique.” It gets worse. Shane goes on to explain that “data from the Entrepreneurship in the United States Assessment indicates that only 2 percent of new business founders expect their companies to have a substantive effect on the markets in which they operate, and 91 percent expect to have little or no impact on those markets.”
It’s hard enough to break through all the marketing clutter that exists today when you’re doing something truly unique and innovative. It’s nearly impossible when you’re solving the same problems in the same ways as dozens of other companies. Write that down, underline it and keep it next to your desk. If you’re not innovating as a company, your marketing will struggle.
That’s why Prosper Strategies has made the conscious decision to work only with organizations that are truly driving change in their industries. These companies don’t have to be huge, and they don’t have to have their sights set on major funding or a massively lucrative exit, but they do have to be willing to do things differently. A few examples from our own client roster include companies like Mango Languages, the leading language learning software in the public library space and Nonprofit HR, the only HR firm in the country exclusively focused on the nonprofit sector. We’ve chosen to work with these companies because we know that their desire to challenge and change their industries positions them for marketing success.
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The company (and/or its marketing efforts) are inauthentic.
In the “old days” (read: before the Internet), marketing was a one-way transaction. Brands placed ads and consumers watched them or did whatever they could to tune them out. Today, marketing is a two-way conversation and a community affair. Consumers are informed, aware and connected to the companies they do business with. They expect to be able to have a dialogue with the brands they buy from, and they expect authenticity and transparency in every interaction. Today’s connected, discerning consumers can sniff out hyperbole a mile away—their radar for all things fake is powerful.
To succeed at marketing today, your brand needs to have a personality and a heart. You need to be willing to give your customers something more than just a superior product or service to connect with. You need to give them an opportunity to be part of something bigger, something genuine, something meaningful. As Simon Sinek so eloquently puts it, you need to “start with why.”
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The company is failing to make an impact.
The most successful companies in years to come will be those that do well by doing good. You can’t argue with the data: 91 percent of global consumers say they’re likely to switch brands to one associated with a good cause given comparable price and quality, and U.S. consumer purchasing of products associated with a cause is up 170 percent since 1993. Today’s consumer majority is even willing to pay more if they know their purchases will make an impact: 50 percent of global consumers say they would be willing to reward companies that give back by paying more for their goods and services. This trend will only continue to grow as cause-conscious millennials become our economy’s key spenders. If that data isn’t enough to make the business case for building impact into your brand, I don’t know what is.
“Doing good” can come in so many different shapes and forms. You could pull a Warby Parker and give your products to those in need each time someone makes a purchase. You could take a page out of Ben & Jerry’s book and commit to rigorous social, environmental and operational standards through a national certification like the one offered by B Corp. Or you could develop a more traditional corporate social responsibility initiative like Colgate and Apple and engage in activities that range from decreasing your waste to improving health among children. But whatever you do, do it with sincerity and authenticity. Remember that point I made about today’s consumers sniffing out fakes a mile away? That especially applies to social impact and corporate social responsibility. There is no faster way to lose the trust of your target market than by building an impact campaign that is more concerned with your own selfish corporate aims than it is doing good and with helping those in need. There’s even a name for this type of practice (see: causewashing).
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The campaign is based on conjecture rather than data and insights.
With the variety of digital tools we all have at our fingertips, there is no excuse for failing to build your campaign on data and insights. Don’t just guess about what your target customers care about, investigate it. Use tools like Google Analytics and Lattice Engines to get a sense of what your target customers want and need, and then test, measure, optimize, rinse and repeat. You’ll thank us for this advice once you see how it impacts your return on investment.
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There is no plan.
Marketers suffer from “shiny object syndrome” more than anyone I know. We’re always excited to try the next technology or tactic that has been promised to help our brands succeed. But jumping from one “great idea” to the next without a foundational marketing plan to guide your efforts is suicidal. Don’t kill your marketing success before it has a chance to grow by failing to stick to a marketing plan, or worse, failing to develop a plan in the first place. Marketing plans can take a wide variety of different shapes and forms, from short and fluid to highly detailed and regimented, but whatever format you decide to use, be sure you’re answering the following questions:
What do we hope to achieve?
What quantitative benchmarks do we hope to meet or exceed? (note: this one is probably the most important. How will you know if your marketing is getting results unless you first determine what success looks like?)
• Who is our target and what do they (actually) care about?
• What are we saying and why should our target care?
• What tactics are we going to use and what are our expectations of those tactics?
• What is our budget and what kind of return do we expect to see from each investment?
• How will we measure our success?
I could list about at least a dozen more, but those are the essentials. If you fail to answer these questions before you dive headfirst into marketing, your campaign will almost surely fail.
Did you notice that three of the five points I listed above deal with the character of your company itself rather than the strength of your marketing efforts? That’s not a mistake. Here at Prosper, we believe that companies can’t succeed at marketing until they have their internal act together and are innovating, acting with authenticity and making an impact. Only then should you start to worry about developing the data, insights and plans you’ll need to make your marketing a bottom-line shifting success.
