Performance Pays the Rent. Branding Pays the Mortgage.
My absent answer to a founder’s marketing question
Have you ever been floored by an unexpectedly direct question about your profession, scrambling for words despite living and breathing the subject?
It happened to me recently.
There I was yakking away with a newbie founder explaining a little about what I do — brand marketing — and what’s involved.
No prospecting. No pitching. Just a plain ol’ hands-on-hips kinda chat.
And then, as if from nowhere, he hit me with it.
“But why bother with brand marketing when you could just put that spend into trackable performance channels?”
“Well, erm…” I said. “The thing is… the reason you’d want to do that is… because… uh…”
…it caught me right off guard.
And though I did eventually manage to muster something of a response, it wasn’t at all pretty.
(I spent the rest of the day duly reacquainting my face with my palm).
So, to cleanse myself of the whole sorry affair, I’m here to share a great answer I once heard to that very question — one that, in hindsight, I…
