Five Places Marketers Fail

When analyzing marketing catastrophes of all different kinds, for companies competing in wildly different industries, some fairly consistent underlying reasons for the failures begin to emerge. And surprisingly, the notion that marketing fails because the marketers in charge were morons is not one of the five. Though there are head-scratchingly bad decisions behind most campaign failures, more insidious reasons are the true propellant behind the epic failures we see in each day's newspaper (if there were still any being published, that is. But that's a marketing failure for another day).

Number Five: The Wrong Market. Sometimes the pressure to eke out just a bit more revenue from an existing but tapped out market drives marketing leaders to try to extend the product line just a bit further or to bring a marginally better solution to the game. All too often, the wrong market is the one in which we currently compete and draw the bulk of our revenue and profits. But in moving forward, a successful and winning leader will know when to make the jump.

Number Four: Bad Timing. Sometimes, however, a marketer's timing is off. Maybe by a little, maybe by a lot. But jumping into a new market too soon can mean years of frustrated "market building" activity while other technologies and approaches take their turns at being the "right solution at the right time". Jump too late and you'll face a nigh impenetrably entrenched set of competitors with too little firepower to shift the playing field.

Number Three: The Wrong Strategy. I often say that there is usually more than one way to get to the goal. However, not every path leads there. Some lead straight into the buzz saw. The number of ways in which a strategy might go wrong are legion. Wrong distribution channel for your product? You're dead. Run ads on billboards when a strong internet route is better? Toast. Doesn't necessarily mean the marketer in charge is a moron, but make enough egregious choices and it'll be tough to dodge the nickname.

Number Two: Disconnect Between Promise and Delivery. Imagine you've spec'd the perfect product for your customer's needs. You've built a demand generation strategy second to none. You've got leads pouring in from around the globe. You're a certifiable genius. But then the factory in China burns down. The contract coders from Russia stop returning your emails. Or perhaps operations disregarded your demand forecast because her bonus gets paid on a metric that has nothing to do with satisfying your customers. In any case, this scenario can lead to the very worst outcome for a company - jilted customers. Those whose passions were stirred and then left bitterly unfulfilled.

Number One: Serving the Wrong Master. This one, more than the others, will be likeliest to cause people on the outside to consider the folks at the wheel a bunch of morons. But chances are that the marketers were simply working to please someone other than the actual customer. Perhaps the CEO had a creative idea he loved and wanted to see executed or the senior management council thought they knew better.

The common element among these failures is a loss of focus and mastery of the customer's condition and needs. The ability to translate this knowledge into effecive action is quite common, but the knowledge itself, now that is an all-too-rare commodity. So while marketing groups quibble over effective SEO strategies and approaches to pricing, too few marketing pros are spending quality time with their customers. And that is why they will fail.

The First Rule of Marketing

As with doctors, the first rule of marketing is to do no harm. It is tough enough to fight off competitive threats, environmental changes, and all the other enemies at the gate. There's no good reason to make things more difficult for yourself by making gigantic, entirely avoidable blunders. You might wonder if I have some particular blunder in mind. As a matter of fact, I do.

You may have heard about Wells Fargo and their planned junket to Las Vegas. If not, here's a portion of an AP story:

"WASHINGTON - Wells Fargo & Co. abruptly canceled Tuesday a pricey Las Vegas casino junket for employees after a torrent of criticism that it was misusing $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money.

The company initially defended the trip after The Associated Press reported it had booked 12 nights beginning Friday... by saying:

"Recognition events are still part of our culture," spokeswoman Melissa Murray said Tuesday afternoon. "It's really important that our team members are still valued and recognized.""

The branding implications are clear. Wells Fargo is saying, clearly, that "Our customers exist to serve us. We are paramount." The brand for this once venerable, long-standing banking titan is now as tarnished and as utterly valueless as any other. They had an opportunity, especially in light of AIG's epic blunder (doing essentially the exact same thing and receiving withering criticism as a result), to take the initiative, cancel all events, reign in executive pay and bonuses, and say to the American people, "We stand with you. It's an awful mess out there, but we'll get through it together." But no, that would have inconvenienced a whole generation of corporate executives that have come to believe that they actually deserve the perks, the bonuses, the unbelievable salaries.

I really was taken aback by their comment, echoed by Wall Street firms aplenty, that
"Recognition events are still part of our culture," spokeswoman Melissa Murray said Tuesday afternoon. "It's really important that our team members are still valued and recognized."

Recognition? What on earth might the senior management be recognized for? Nobel Prize winning new levels of ineptitude? Mismanagement so severe that they had to ask Uncle Sam for $25 BILLION? The recognition event that needed to happen was to have the board meet and 1) fire the senior management team and 2) resign for failure to oversee the juggernaut before the predictable train wreck.

So back to marketing. Your brand is your most precious asset. Everything you do impacts on your brand. Everything. Big things, and small things. Our collective perception of your brand is developed one person at a time. It's as simple as that. Once you cross a certain line, your brand, so carefully nurtured, becomes an albatross around your neck. Don't Wells Fargo your own brand.