Today I’m going to talk about probably the most common ways business owners absolutely hose themselves when it comes to marketing. We call it the Marketing Wheel of Despair. A good many of you are playing the game right now without knowing it.
Here’s what it looks like. Business owners and marketers move from one tactic to another trying to find the magic bullet. When one thing doesn’t work, they try the next thing. When that doesn’t work, they try the next thing. And round and round it goes. Sometimes for years.
Hire the SEO guys
Fire the SEO guys
Hire the digital agency
Fire the digital agency
Hire consultant
Fire consultant
Hire different consultant
Fire different consultant
Hire branding expert
Fire branding expert
Sink into deep despair and repeat
Companies spend a huge amount of money locked in this cycle over time and are baffled that they can’t seem to get marketing to work for them. They try each tactic like they are sticking their toe in the water with the assumption that “We’ll try it and if it works, we’ll spend more” – they are doomed to fail.
Think of B2B Marketing as a giant flywheel. It takes a lot more force to start the flywheel than it does to keep the flywheel spinning. Trying a “little this and a little that” delivers “Nothing. Nada. Zero.”
You don’t send one tank into battle and “see how it goes.” In today’s episode I expand on this idea.