Let’s call these the Dirty Dozen – 12 things you don’t want to say (or have said) about your marketing operation. Over my long career in B2B marketing I have heard a variation of all of the following:
- We are clueless but hope to have an answer someday.
- Buy from us because we really need the money.
- My job is on the line. Can you purchase today instead of next quarter?
- Who needs leads when you have a phone book?
- Yes, our website is lousy, but please trust in our competence anyway.
- What’s the big deel about a fuw mispellings onthe webstie?
- Who needs a new press release? The one from eight months ago was really good.
- Why make it easy to respond? If prospects want our product, they will figure out how to do business with us.
- Why should I take a marketing expert’s advice? I just read a book on the subject.
- Who needs marketing? We can just hire some expensive salespeople.
- Let’s thoroughly analyze every aspect of every marketing program. Then we can complete half the work in twice the time.
- Who needs all this pull marketing and social media stuff? The old push marketing is working great!
Management guru Tom Peters used to talk about how some companies were so lacking in self improvement that they might as well have the slogan: “We’re no worse than anyone else.” Please don’t be one of these companies, at least when it comes to marketing.
Your dirty dozen B2B marketing mottos are hilarious, shocking and sad all at the same time.
I’m still laughing about these 12 comments. Thanks for the great list.
I think this emphasizes the need to be realistic in self assessment about the strengths and weaknesses of functional units in an organization. One may grade out with an ‘A+’ in Engineering/Technology, but only a ‘C’ in Marketing. Understanding a weakness is the first step in taking meaningful action to improve business results.