By cdelprincipe@hubspot.com (Curt del Principe)

When I saw a LinkedIn post from today’s master declaring, “Marketing’s job is not to drive revenue,” I did a little shimmy and thought, “She gets it!”

We struck up a conversation, and I discovered an entire pharmacopeia of tough pills to swallow. “I love talking smack about marketing!” she grinned.

I asked for three of the bitterest truths that marketers need to hear. And, folks… it’s time to take your medicine.

Moni Oloyede

Founder, Educator at MO MarTech

• Fun fact: Moni hails from the same town as Edward Norton, Aaron McGruder, Christian Siriano, and Druski. (Do you know it without googling?)

Lesson 1: Marketing’s job is not to drive revenue.

Every CMO in the audience just reflexively jerked towards the “unsubscribe” button. Stick with us here.

“The problem with being focused on revenue is that your marketing feels like you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall,” says Oloyede. “You just chase leads all day. ‘They didn’t click my email, let me move on to the next topic, and see if that works. And you jump and jump and jump.’”

She points out that the instant gratification within digital marketing has raised a generation of marketers who have never been given the fundamentals. Which works until it doesn’t.

“I was raised in the digital marketing space. I didn’t know a time before that. And when I went to grad school, I realized: We’re not actually doing marketing. We’re sending out content and getting leads. But we’re not building relationships, communicating effectively, and trying to build affinity.”

“You can’t serve two masters. If I serve the CEO, that’s revenue. If I’m going to serve the customer, I have to slow down. I have to have patience.”

Lesson 2: Demand gen is not a strategy.

“The word ‘strategy’ gets thrown around a lot and it is bastardized to hell. Demand gen is not a strategy. Demand gen is the execution of a strategy.”

Tell me if this next part sounds familiar.

“A typical marketing campaign is: Let’s pick a topic, create content around that topic, then collect leads and just email the crap outta them until they die. That’s not a strategy.”

“Juxtapose that against the Dove Real Beauty campaign. A multi-year, consistent story based on the consumer psychology of women not feeling beautiful in their bodies due to beauty standards. That’s a strategy.”

Instead of one-off pieces of content that jump from topic to topic, all marketing efforts — whether lead gen, demand gen, or brand awareness — fed back to Dove’s core message.

And that message didn’t come from Dove simply throwing spaghetti at the wall until they found the noodle that stuck.

Oloyede lays out the process: “I’m hearing my …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog