Three Things Marketing Need to Do Better

Someone asked me a great question:‍

What would I do differently to improve marketing impact? ‍

My answer:

1. Do more than marketing‍

Once upon a time, at a team offsite, we devised this mantra. We discussed the challenge of marketing's impact and how we can solve the problem.

We came up with the statement, "let's do more than marketing". It meant we should care about the broader impact on the business and alignment. We needed to think beyond our narrow view of the world.

2. Engage with customers‍

We all wish more marketing leaders and teams would spend more time with customers.

Asking these questions once a month to new and existing customers will do absolute wonders:

• Take me back to the day when you first decided to solve this problem; what triggered you to take action?
• - What changed in you or the organisation
  (The Key is the insight into the trigger moment)
• What did you do first to understand what providers to consider
• The content they find helpful, words, messages.
• What did your peers tell you that was helpful to you (what did you learn on the internet)
• Marketing should own this discovery and insight back into the business. ‍

3. Manage the perception of complexity‍

Marketing suffers from complexity; it's a big one. And I could have done better at this managing complexity many times. Now I know it's crucial for bringing confidence in outcomes. You, the CEO and VC, don't want the complex view of marketing - you want it to be simple. CMOS doesn't need to go into granular detail on the marketing machine -- it's a defence mechanism for the team. We all know it's complex, but to be at the top of your game, the communication of strategy and outputs needs to be precise.

Encourage your marketing teams and leaders to think through these concepts. And if they live by this mantra, you'll see marketing aligned better to business outcomes and execution.

Then I'd listen for signals and double down on what works.