The reality of marketing: Nobody knows what they're doing.
Figured since I've been so vocal about there not being any interesting discussion on here lately, why not shut up and start one.
I've been thinking about what I've learned from internet marketing for the past 10 years, and all the resources I've gathered throughout this time.
- No technique works for everyone, marketing is super individual
- It gets harder every day to break through the noise and get heard
- All the massive success stories you see on here and Twitter: hard survivorship bias
- Most tactics and strategies stop working the day someone posts a thread about it
- On that note, most "tactics" don't work
And I think most importantly:
- Creativity? Yet almost every company, product or marketer uses the same "stack": social media, tools, pricing gauge (promotions, discounts), email marketing, funnels, SEO, content marketing.
Still I wonder if it's this standardised, why is it not fully automated?
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It is weird, I agree with all your points but disagree with your overall sentiment. And some of this will sound harsh...
Yup.
Completely.
Most definitely.
Agreed.
I am sure at some point it will be fully automated but for that to happen we should be extremely near to AGI. Because the most important thing about marketing is context and no automation solution can understand context yet.
I think the biggest issue is most of the people does not understand the basics and only deploy tactical solutions. And sometimes not even that - just the technique. Because everyone is trying to play the exploitation game in which you exploit only a certain technique. Nobody cares about the strategic elements.
Everyone is trying to do "marketing" without doing marketing. "Read a blog post, learn about a technique, do not even try to adapt it to your situation, deploy right away, cross your fingers, be surprised when you don't see results" is not a valid approach to marketing.
Interesting take, thanks for sharing! Do you have a resource that we can use to learn the basics?
I don't have a single resource. I can advise on two (text)books:
If you are not interested in reading textbooks, these are the list of stuff I consider basics/foundations:
There are a lot of marketing courses all around the interwebs. Check those to see if any of the above mentioned items are included. Mix and match according to the need.
Thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time to write that. Super helpful!
I listen to Chris Do last week's podcast and he talked a bit about this. He does things differently because he doesn't want to use the same "tactics" he doesn't like to see others use on him. This idea stuck with me
Good topic Nikola. Can definitely discuss this idea comprehensively but to keep it short I have to say that I agree.
Most marketers are just following what they see works from the leaders in the field who have figured out a particular tactic that generates returns.
On the flip side of this, those who are truly creative and innovative (the leaders in the field) also don't know what they're doing in the sense that nothing is guaranteed. However, this bunch actually knows that experimentation and the unknown is part of the process of finding what will work.
Once something is discovered to work it has a shelf life of positive returns until the followers copy the tactic and bring returns to zero. Then the circle of life can continue.
Hey Nikola! Thanks for jumping in there to start a discussion!
If tactics don't work... What would you say does work? Having an outstanding product that sells through word of mouth? Selling to an audience that already knows you and trusts you? Curious to hear your thoughts.
Each founder has to forge their own way. What does work across products is a big .. deep audience. So start early and send valuable content out each week. Build your audience.
What is "valueable content" and what's spam though?