Why Most Marketing Fails (It’s Not What You Think!) | Small Business #Marketing Tips

Almost regardless of the metric we use to define their success, many marketing efforts simply don't deliver as well as predicted. Subsequent forensic analysis may well conclude there's no obvious signs of a smoking gun. Targeting may be right, the messaging may be right, the choice of media and quality of execution may be spot on, yet the campaign may still fail to deliver on the commercial accountability expected of it at the time of its conception. So why is this? Well, one reason I think is that we're trying to make marketing into the wrong kind of science. We're trying to define its efficacy using models borrowed from engineering or economics or finance. We want to believe a world exists where every single piece of marketing output is perfectible, attributable, quantifiable, measurable, and 100% efficient. Selling marketing on its efficiency is a bit like selling a Michelin-star restaurant by listing the ingredients of each dish. Now, while not completely irrelevant, we're disregarding the list of other factors that contribute to success because they're more nuanced, more contextual, and often harder to measure. We ignore the fact that the final result is greater than the sum of its constituent parts. As an industry, I think we seem ever more obsessed with the parts of marketing and we're forgetting the whole. Channels, media, keywords, cookies, targeting, AI. Sure, they all have their place, but They're merely ingredients to the dish. They're not the dish itself.