If a company makes a $50m profit in its first year but goes bankrupt less than a decade later, should it be considered a successful business? It’s easy to equate success to sales, yet chasing short-term profits makes long-term success unattainable. Developments in digital marketing have made it easier than ever before to deliver quick results. Still, new businesses that jump in without doing the work to support cross-departmental collaboration will soon face stagnation. So, do we need to unf*ck marketing, or do we just need to learn to work together better to support business-wide goals?

In this episode of Marketing Unf*cked, your hosts, Siobhan Solberg and Russell McAthy, chat with digital consultant Tim Stewart about why it’s not the state of marketing that’s the problem: it’s everything. We delve into the origins of split testing, why the big picture should guide all business teams, and the importance of always asking ‘why?’

In this episode:

• Marketing covers everything that impacts the audience’s perception of the company; this isn’t limited to advertising or PPC.
• How has the introduction of digital technology impacted marketers’ approach to audience segmentation and split testing?
• Is the greater degree of accountability for legal and social responsibilities in digital marketing a sign of maturity in the market?
• Is it arrogant of digital marketers to assume the data they’ve collected is accurate or ‘theirs’?
• As marketing is such a broad category, is it inaccurate for consultants to call themselves ‘marketing experts’?
• While specialisms are important, extensive fracturing can lead to inefficiencies.
• How can specialist marketing teams work better with the wider business to improve their understanding of the big picture?
• ‘Business as usual’ rules set for a company or team’s convenience can harm customer satisfaction.
• Growth hacking is the enemy of long-term success; incentivizing marketers to deliver quick results has led to a narrow and short-term view of marketing.
• We need to encourage people to communicate, admit when they don’t understand, and ask ‘why?’
• Why do we fight fires with CRO instead of focusing on fire prevention?
• Why businesses should always prioritize efficacy over efficiency.
• Focus on measuring what’s important, valuable, and can be changed rather than measuring for measuring’s sake.
• Why the ‘that’s just how it is’ mentality and standard operating procedures don’t account for the nuance of our clients’ businesses.
• When businesses allow teams to develop innovative solutions without fear of repercussions, they see optimizations happen naturally.

Resources:

Tim on Twitter

Tim on LinkedIn

Tim’s website