The Only Reason I Became A Marketing Consultant

I started consulting because of words like these. I could tell as I spoke with others that they were loaded words. Every business owner needed to be on Facebook, on Twitter, and “growth hacking” their way to hundreds of thousands of followers. What many fail to see — as the excitement of being known online drowns out their rational side — is that without the underlying reasons for doing all of this work there is no reason to “do marketing”.

I didn’t study marketing in school so starting in this field almost crushed me when I realized just how many “Mad Men” wannabes there are out there. People who think way too highly of themselves for the words they use.

Yes, technology and marketing are probably the fastest growing fields at the moment. With that progress comes a lot of inventions and nomenclature. As we evolve in our work, however, we see the dying elements and must clean house according.

Ranked from least annoying to most.

1. “Actionable Analytics”. Analytics are there to create future actions. True, there is some useless data, but you shouldn’t be looking at it.

2. “Content is King”. I think the creative people were feeling a little left out after all of the “Big Data” talk the analytical guys were shoving down. Now, we move on from both.

3. “Disruptor or early adopters”. I dislike these two words in any scenario mainly because of “early adopters”. Anyone who calls themselves this is basically trying to brand themselves aloud. Which is slimy feeling.

4. “Growth Hacking”. I get it, marketing can be expensive, but this word has probably caused more harm than good by now. Many small businesses have trouble making the monetary marketing investment in the first place. If you tell them that results can be seen for little to no money, they will place all their hopes on that. What they don’t know is the actual time commitments (which still equals money). All marketing should be completed on a budget, no matter what the budget is.

5. Innovators. This is just due to the fact we are in an evolving industry. It’s a game now. Might as well call us “idea shape shifters”.

6. Mobile Optimization. When I started in the marketing world this word was just starting to get thrown around. I was 23, a 8 year veteran phone user, and couldn’t understand why people hadn’t foreseen this anyways. “Mobile” needs to die.

7. SoLoMo. Social, Local, and Mobile. I don’t even understand how this one became a thing in the first place. Then again, I do hate abbrevs.

8. Viral. Read Jonah Berger’s Contagious. Then realize that “viral” should not be a strategy or an outcome. What happened was fickle popularity.