So when growth slows, watch out for Fake Marketing on the team
What’s that? It’s stuff that OK sure is marketing … and is often seemingly free or cheap … but won’t move the needle. It’s not what you need. But it takes a lot of time and fills the gap when folks are otherwise out of ideas, energy, or both.
Some examples of Fake Marketing:
- ???? 99% of “Digital Events”. No one comes or shows up. But a huge amount of time and effort, and it feels like you are doing something that matters. But does it? We’re not in lockdown anymore. No one wants to sit in front of their laptop all day and watch a boring “digital event”.
- ????♂️ YAP: Yet Another Podcast. Will anyone actually listen? But again, a huge amount of time and effort goes into these.
- ????♀️ Poorly Attended Side Events. Want to do a side event at Dreamforce or Inbound or SaaStr Annual? Great. But if you can’t somehow drive high engagement and attendance, don’t pretend it’s Real Marketing. Doing field marketing right often is a lot more work than just this.
- ???? Mediocre PR. A little of this is OK. But hiring a PR firm and spending a lot of time on very minor placements gets you nowhere.
- ???? Crappy AI content, crappy AI campaigns. Sure, you check the box. Sure they take almost no energy or work. But they don’t perform.
- ???? Too Much LinkedIn + TikTok and Other Social Media. Yes, LinkedIn is great for B2B — up to a point. But spending a huge amount of time here because you are out of other ideas isn’t going to restart growth. If your shorts are getting 50 views, what’s the point? It ain’t gonna move the needle. Not at scale, especially.
Now for some stuff that actually works in marketing, even in tougher times, and even if budgets are leaner, and even it doesn’t always seem like it overnight:
- More Meetings with Prospects. Especially IRL. OK maybe you are struggling to close them. But you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
- Getting Your Customers Together in Person, and with Prospects. This always increases retention, and you’ll see them sell each other.
- Showing Up For Real Where Your Prospects and Customers are. The biggest events, advertising on the biggest channels in your industry, etc. This doesn’t always have mega ROI. But it always works. You gotta be present. And show up to the biggest prospects in person.
- A high-quality weekly webinar to prospects and existing customers. We’ve been talking about this for a decade at SaaStr. Yet so few truly do this 52 weeks a year, for real. More here.
- Really high quality outbound — but only if you show up with a ton of research and value add. ABM 2.0. Again, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
- Win back campaigns. Get the deals you lost — back. 80%+ of them may be gone forever. But not all of them.
- Going deeper with partners and channels. This takes a long time to bear fruit and it is a lot of work. But if you literally have any partners or channels that bring you any customers at all, if you double down on them, you will get at least one more customer. But you have to do more.
Fake Marketing is what I see struggling, and honestly, failing marketing teams doing. All of the energy goes there. And less stepping up and generating more qualified pipeline. Sure, the spend goes way down. But so does the results.
Marketing’s goal is to bring in the business. Not to close it, but to bring it in. Make sure the amount of time and energy — not just capital — is worth it.
Otherwise, you’re hiding. From the fact it’s not working.
If times are harder, is your team doing a lot of fake marketing? Be honest. Because I see it everywhere.
A related post here:
(image from here)
