Marketing Delusion In Vicinity
You can't do marketing - at least, not well - if you're not measuring your campaigns, and where your traffic and leads are coming from. Web analytics, and the data crunching of those metrics, is absolutely central to making your marketing effective. At HubSpot, every single thing we do in marketing has a success metric to go along with it, and we frequently do awesome (yes, we geek out) data crunching of our email stats or lead conversion metrics or lead scoring algorithm. Marketers today MUST do math - understand it, do it, and communicate it. The whole shebang.
It's true that many of the marketers on our team have broken some sort of technology - maybe more than once - during their tenure. I myself have gone through a number of laptops, while others may go through power adapters or cameras. But let's dig into this. It's not that we're irresponsible or can't handle technology. Rather, laptops have crumbled because they can't handle our large excel and video files. Power adapters die because they get wrapped and carried home day after day so that we can continue working and geeking out about marketing from our homes. Cameras don't die - we upgrade and get new and better ones as our video chops get better. Technology is key to marketing today, and we need powerful tools to keep up with us.
We do love that saying, and yes, we have a fridge at HubSpot that's stocked with more beer than soda. The reality is that marketing is a creative and social process. You can't do marketing without interacting with people and building relationships. Social media and the web certainly makes it easier to build relationships with people remotely, but you can't replace the in-person relationship building. And what makes a networking event even more comfortable? A drink in your hand. I'm sure if we were to get rid of the beer fridge here at HubSpot, the whole company would be up in arms.
One of the reasons I love marketing as much as I do is because it is the intersection of so many pieces of business. Who do I work with the most? Sometimes it's our product development team. Sometimes it's the sales team, or our founders. Marketing is the intersection of every part of the business - finance, sales, customer retention, product development, and executive strategy. I'm not saying we do any of these to its fullest, but the exposure to each is incredibly fun and makes for such an amazing learning experience that I would never trade. Marketing is not a last resort, it's my first choice.
I used to get in arguments with my science major friends, who always thought my silly Religious Studies classes (I was a Religious Studies major) were so easy. It's true that I would have absolutely struggled or even failed out of the insane science classes; that was always my worst subject in school. But in reality, my science major friends would not have found my Humanities classes so easy. Humanities - and, consequently, marketing - require a different skill set, consisting of written and verbal communication skills (so that you can write ranting posts such as this one!) plus additional research and analysis skills. The key is always to find a job that you enjoy where you can leverage your skills.
Are there any other misunderstood marketers out there? What other misconceptions are there? Dare any others try to defend some of these misconceptions?
Everybody seems to know Marketing. The world is full of Marketing gurus. We all talk about with a remarkable ease and confidence, though most of the times we are not Marketing professionals and not even close. What are the most frequent mistakes in understanding Marketing practices and theories?
Defining Marketing
There is clearly a general tendency in employing the notion of Marketing within a confusing mix of Public Relations, Advertising, or Media Planning. Regardless of the degree in evolution and growing of Marketing, many of us still cannot understand what Marketing really is and only see the its extreme manifestations. Many believe Marketing is a useless, fancy field, eating up budgets and giving little in return. Others see Marketing as an artistic field, where all you need is creativity to develop a memorable ad.
This common mistake is, again, the result of sufficient understanding of Marketing. Marketing professionals are often thought to be responsible for creating advertisements, logos, slogans. What people usually see is the mere top of the iceberg, forgetting that there is a product, a price and a distribution strategy to be developed before even thinking of advertising.
On one hand, the marketer is often seen as a must-have within a company, but (s)he has an indefinite role and ends up doing a little of everything. On the other hand we might be faced with the other extreme, where the marketer is an omniscient, all-powerful creature eclipsing everyone else.
In spite of the abundance in resources and consulting services aimed at researching the consumer’s base, segmentation is still done intuitively at least at small-business level. Large companies might have whole departments assigned to work on segmentation research and strategy, and still not be fully failure-proof.
Surely, the list above is not exhaustive, and it only points at several attitudes leading nowhere on the Marketing battlefield.
Marketing is surely not an art, thought it does employ a certain flaire and creativity. Marketing is not a science either, but it operates with precise instruments. Marketing is not for everyone and not to be performed regardless of the conjuncture around the business.
Marketing is not advertising. Don't think for a second that because you're advertising you're marketing. No way. There are over 100 weapons of marketing out there.
Marketing is not direct mail. Some companies think they can get all the business they need with direct mail.
Marketing is not telemarketing. For business-to-business enterprises, it's true, few marketing weapons succeed as well as telemarketing. But telemarketing response can be dramatically improved by augmenting it with advertising and direct mail. Marketing is no telemarketing alone.
Marketing is not brochures. Many companies rush to produce a brochure about the benefits they offer, and then pat themselves on the back for the quality of the brochure.
If you use humor in your marketing, people will recall your funny joke but not your compelling offer. After that, it will become grating and will get in the way of what makes marketing work - repetition.
Marketing is not an Invitation to be clever. If you fall into the cleverness trap, it's because you don't realize people remember the cleverest part of the marketing, not the part they should remember: your offer.
Marketing is not complicated. It becomes complicated for people who fail to grasp its simplicity. But true guerrillas know marketing is user-friendly. They simply start with a guerrilla marketing plan, create a marketing calendar and select their weapons.
More money has been wasted due to marketers expecting miracles than due to any other misconception of marketing. But remember, doing it right requires commitment, patience and planning. Expect miracles, and you'll get ulcers.
Now that you know what marketing isn't, here's what marketing is: It's an opportunity for you to earn profits with other businesses in your community or industry. It's a process of building lasting relationships. It's a topic that intimidates many business owners, so they steer clear of it.
There is probably a grain of truth in this, but it is not because they don't want to "get it." While you live and breathe your area of digital marketing expertise, your executives have many other issues that occupy their time.
Getting funding for an unproven idea is never easy, especially if the returns can't be quantified. Your executive team makes investment decisions all the time. They are not anti-funding. And they do realize the need for focusing their limited resources.

You can't do marketing - at least, not well - if you're not measuring your campaigns, and where your traffic and leads are coming from. Web analytics, and the data crunching of those metrics, is absolutely central to making your marketing effective. At HubSpot, every single thing we do in marketing has a success metric to go along with it, and we frequently do awesome (yes, we geek out) data crunching of our email stats or lead conversion metrics or lead scoring algorithm. Marketers today MUST do math - understand it, do it, and communicate it. The whole shebang.
It's true that many of the marketers on our team have broken some sort of technology - maybe more than once - during their tenure. I myself have gone through a number of laptops, while others may go through power adapters or cameras. But let's dig into this. It's not that we're irresponsible or can't handle technology. Rather, laptops have crumbled because they can't handle our large excel and video files. Power adapters die because they get wrapped and carried home day after day so that we can continue working and geeking out about marketing from our homes. Cameras don't die - we upgrade and get new and better ones as our video chops get better. Technology is key to marketing today, and we need powerful tools to keep up with us.
We do love that saying, and yes, we have a fridge at HubSpot that's stocked with more beer than soda. The reality is that marketing is a creative and social process. You can't do marketing without interacting with people and building relationships. Social media and the web certainly makes it easier to build relationships with people remotely, but you can't replace the in-person relationship building. And what makes a networking event even more comfortable? A drink in your hand. I'm sure if we were to get rid of the beer fridge here at HubSpot, the whole company would be up in arms.
One of the reasons I love marketing as much as I do is because it is the intersection of so many pieces of business. Who do I work with the most? Sometimes it's our product development team. Sometimes it's the sales team, or our founders. Marketing is the intersection of every part of the business - finance, sales, customer retention, product development, and executive strategy. I'm not saying we do any of these to its fullest, but the exposure to each is incredibly fun and makes for such an amazing learning experience that I would never trade. Marketing is not a last resort, it's my first choice.
I used to get in arguments with my science major friends, who always thought my silly Religious Studies classes (I was a Religious Studies major) were so easy. It's true that I would have absolutely struggled or even failed out of the insane science classes; that was always my worst subject in school. But in reality, my science major friends would not have found my Humanities classes so easy. Humanities - and, consequently, marketing - require a different skill set, consisting of written and verbal communication skills (so that you can write ranting posts such as this one!) plus additional research and analysis skills. The key is always to find a job that you enjoy where you can leverage your skills.
Are there any other misunderstood marketers out there? What other misconceptions are there? Dare any others try to defend some of these misconceptions?
Everybody seems to know Marketing. The world is full of Marketing gurus. We all talk about with a remarkable ease and confidence, though most of the times we are not Marketing professionals and not even close. What are the most frequent mistakes in understanding Marketing practices and theories?
Defining Marketing
There is clearly a general tendency in employing the notion of Marketing within a confusing mix of Public Relations, Advertising, or Media Planning. Regardless of the degree in evolution and growing of Marketing, many of us still cannot understand what Marketing really is and only see the its extreme manifestations. Many believe Marketing is a useless, fancy field, eating up budgets and giving little in return. Others see Marketing as an artistic field, where all you need is creativity to develop a memorable ad.
This common mistake is, again, the result of sufficient understanding of Marketing. Marketing professionals are often thought to be responsible for creating advertisements, logos, slogans. What people usually see is the mere top of the iceberg, forgetting that there is a product, a price and a distribution strategy to be developed before even thinking of advertising.
On one hand, the marketer is often seen as a must-have within a company, but (s)he has an indefinite role and ends up doing a little of everything. On the other hand we might be faced with the other extreme, where the marketer is an omniscient, all-powerful creature eclipsing everyone else.
In spite of the abundance in resources and consulting services aimed at researching the consumer’s base, segmentation is still done intuitively at least at small-business level. Large companies might have whole departments assigned to work on segmentation research and strategy, and still not be fully failure-proof.
Surely, the list above is not exhaustive, and it only points at several attitudes leading nowhere on the Marketing battlefield.
Marketing is surely not an art, thought it does employ a certain flaire and creativity. Marketing is not a science either, but it operates with precise instruments. Marketing is not for everyone and not to be performed regardless of the conjuncture around the business.
Marketing is not advertising. Don't think for a second that because you're advertising you're marketing. No way. There are over 100 weapons of marketing out there.
Marketing is not direct mail. Some companies think they can get all the business they need with direct mail.
Marketing is not telemarketing. For business-to-business enterprises, it's true, few marketing weapons succeed as well as telemarketing. But telemarketing response can be dramatically improved by augmenting it with advertising and direct mail. Marketing is no telemarketing alone.
Marketing is not brochures. Many companies rush to produce a brochure about the benefits they offer, and then pat themselves on the back for the quality of the brochure.
If you use humor in your marketing, people will recall your funny joke but not your compelling offer. After that, it will become grating and will get in the way of what makes marketing work - repetition.
Marketing is not an Invitation to be clever. If you fall into the cleverness trap, it's because you don't realize people remember the cleverest part of the marketing, not the part they should remember: your offer.
Marketing is not complicated. It becomes complicated for people who fail to grasp its simplicity. But true guerrillas know marketing is user-friendly. They simply start with a guerrilla marketing plan, create a marketing calendar and select their weapons.
More money has been wasted due to marketers expecting miracles than due to any other misconception of marketing. But remember, doing it right requires commitment, patience and planning. Expect miracles, and you'll get ulcers.
Now that you know what marketing isn't, here's what marketing is: It's an opportunity for you to earn profits with other businesses in your community or industry. It's a process of building lasting relationships. It's a topic that intimidates many business owners, so they steer clear of it.
There is probably a grain of truth in this, but it is not because they don't want to "get it." While you live and breathe your area of digital marketing expertise, your executives have many other issues that occupy their time.
Getting funding for an unproven idea is never easy, especially if the returns can't be quantified. Your executive team makes investment decisions all the time. They are not anti-funding. And they do realize the need for focusing their limited resources.