Marketing- an educated guess

I have no intention to sabotage my own venture but if I am ever to win, let it be people's hearts first. As a marketing consultant and in all honesty, I say marketing cannot solve all your problems.

If you haven't worked with a marketing professional or an agency before, you can assume that all your business problems can be remedied by working with an expert. Allow me to share a less popular opinion; marketing isn't an ultimate solution.

As it is in multiple disciplines, nothing is set in stone in marketing. There is a lot of trial and error in marketing just like in much of the sciences and approaches. You can think of marketing as a science that tries to find solutions to business problems that are intricate and much more complicated than they seem. Indeed, there's more than meets the eye in business and marketing is no magic wand. Even though the principles in marketing are universal, we cannot simply come up with "one size fits all" applications.

Through marketing and consumer research we can understand the possibilities. Via customer feedback and data collection, marketers design insightful paths for companies. Marketing depends a lot on previous experiences and recent data to execute the business processes from product development to pricing or promotions. But it never has 'spot on' answers to challenges that you are facing. Marketing is much more like an educated guess. This thought came to me as I was writing the previous blog entry about how companies expect too much from data. In the end, marketing is a lot of planning but there is a lot of ‘do and see’ in it too.

No one can predict the future, at least with sharp precision. Even the wisest cannot know because the world is ever-changing. Who could have predicted the coronavirus and its impact on global markets? Maybe Bill Gates? That’s why I never like the question “where do you see yourself in next 5 years?” was my least favourite during interviews.

I think marketing has a quantum-like quality where the results can never be too accurate (if a physician or scientist should read this, I apologise for the possible misconception). After all, a large extent of marketing is related to how people will interact with the brand and its products/services. And if there is one thing we know for sure about human relations, it is that they are volatile.

So for any project to succeed, we can only do what we think is best and leave the rest to time and keep adjusting the plans along the way. On a similar note, my advice to most businesses is to worry less about this planning and start focusing more on human relations. Instead of giving too much time and resources to marketing projects, they can divert those efforts to have better relationships with customers through services and lots of quality interaction. But not getting lost in pages of marketing plans.

I hope my message doesn't confuse anyone. I never mean to say that you should stop working with marketing professionals. By all means, get help from experts. But do not rely too much on marketing as if it will be the end of your business worries. No marketing professional or agency can offer you foolproof plans. If anyone shall claim to do so here is a caveat: stay away from those people.

By the same token, I know many marketing professionals who turn down thousands of pounds of projects. Because they know that even though the products /services are good, the market or the brand is not ready. If you come across such folk, never let them go and keep them in your circle.

I have, in fact, heard of a recent case like this. An agency refused to start a project for a client. They believed the brand was not ready to be marketed. Upon hearing the agency say "there is no need to spend so much money on this project", the potential customers replied, "we just need content and social media, can you do that or not?" Now if the agency was struggling for money or lacked ethics, they would immediately jump on the occasion. But they refused and helped the company save thousands of pounds and effort.

Marketing can surely boost existing business potential and grow your business but sometimes you need to wait for the right moment and do the right thing, even if it means saying no.

Marketing strategy is a long term and continuous process. It requires revisions as business also evolves in time.