Marketing is broken
A sneak peek into why Capocha came to be.
Since I was fresh out of uni I’ve been working in marketing.
I love it, I enjoy it, but most importantly, I think it can have a tremendous impact. But the more I look around, the more I think there’s something terribly wrong in the way we are doing business.
It appears marketing is broken.
I have no idea what happened in the past 10 years, but the disconnect between business goals, branding and execution is quite shocking, specifically in B2B (business-to-business, for those of you not keen on jargonic acronyms).
Where has it all gone to sh*t?
With the advent of tech, online and the age of ‘anytime, anywhere’, the marketing community was torn: those who remained attached to the old ways, those who embraced the new and ran with them.
But no one stopped for one second to think how traditional marketing could be embedded in the new ways.
In time, we ended up with this decade’s marketing jungle that frustrates everyone: clients, marketers and all in between.
- You have those that cannot move until they have a one year plan, that becomes outdated the day of signoff; and those who just “run with it” and find themselves in a bit of a (gigantic) pickle when they look back and see a collection of disjointed activities.
- You have branding experts that cannot move past the insight or USP to turn it into actionable plans that move beyond a poster or a 60" ad;
- You have the glorified growth hacker, that berates against “traditional marketers” for not focusing on growth and strongly believes that “marketing that works” is a series of tests and subsequent hacks to optimise online campaigns to an inch of their existence;
- You’ve got those who follow the theory and create engagement plans with never-ending emails with no clear purpose, or content strategies that are simply a series of articles that start with “87 tips to help you succeed in life (you won’t believe 67)” because “it works.”;
- You’ve got those that go to events, spend half their budget on swag without knowing why (because everybody else is doing it) and consider a successful event a bowl of business cards;
- And you’ve got those (probably most of the above) that still don’t understand that for B2B marketing to be successful it has to be tightly aligned (and when I say tightly aligned, I mean joined at the hip!) with sales and cx;
In other words, it’s a bit messy. But it doesn’t have to be.
There’s hope.
Marketing is as good as its weakest link. As soon as you take that approach, you understand that every specimen in the jungle needs to work together, because on their own they are not good enough (well, there are some that just need to change or go home, but this part of the story is about hope, so let’s stay positive people!)
Many have started to see that things need to change. There are some incredible brands and professionals out there doing some incredible work. There’s tech that is starting to bring Marketing, Sales and CX together, forcing these departments to work closer. There are leaders and professionals understanding that even if the funnel is divided into stages, marketing and sales play a part in almost every single one of them.
If you are part of the rebellion, push to effect change. Marketing should stand tall and help businesses achieve their goals.
Let’s do this!
Thanks for reading. If you liked this story, ABC!
Why Capocha?
Capocha means Head in Argentinean slang. As a joke my job title in every single startup I’ve worked for in the past 9 years has been “Marketing Capocha” (aka Head of Marketing).
The definition of head is “the part of the human body that contains the brain, mouth and sense organs.”
And that is why Capocha exists: to help B2B businesses think and design a robust strategy, put together a comms plan that delivers on it and hits business goals, and/ or build fabulous experiences between brand and customers.
About me
My name is Agus (like a duck and a goose, I’m A Goose.) In my previous life I was a traditional marketer managing FMCG brands like Lux, Rexona, Impulse and Sunsilk for Argentina & LatAm. In 2009 life brought me to Australia, where I finished a Masters in Entrepreneurship and realised I was no entrepreneur, but worked really well with founders to help them bring their vision to life and drive growth with results-driven b2b marketing. I love my husband, my dog, my scotch and I swear a lot.
