Should I run my own marketing?

“I’m posting regularly and have placed some ads.” “Who knows my company and industry better than I do?”

There is a big difference in marketing tactics and a marketing program. A lot of companies consider posting semi-regularly on social media and launching a paid ads campaign when revenue drops as their marketing program.

I mean, technically, those are marketing thing. Tactics if you will. But without a strategy and a plan guiding your efforts, you’re just going to waste your time and your money. The ultimate marketing paradox: not having enough time for it ends up wasting the time you do spend on it.

Marketing is like agriculture. Bear with me here. You don’t have to know anything about farming to know that you can’t just scatter random seeds onto random ground and come back in the fall to a bountiful harvest. You need to understand why you’re planting something, the climate, the type of soil, growing times…

A comprehensive marketing program should include the ability to translate your long-term goals into actionable insights, a marketing strategy (who, why) roadmap (what, where, when), a fleshed-out marketing funnel, keeping an eye on your competition…you get the idea.

Most company owners (or their leadership teams) don’t have enough time to dedicate specifically to marketing. They’re focused on long-term planning and guiding the overall vision of the company. Not to mention the area of the business they’re actually supposed to focus on.

Perhaps you’ve realized this and are considering hiring a junior or intermediate (read: low cost) marketing person to post for you and monitor Google analytics? Who will be responsible for coaching that person? Who will impart the marketing wisdom that they need to grow into marketers with senior-level experience? Your CFO might be a financial wizard but they aren’t equipped to coach marketers.

Further compounding that scenario would be asking that junior marketer to operate without all the high-level elements that marketing needs. Your junior marketer is not yet seasoned enough to build you a program and that is a recipe for failure.

This is where fractional marketing leadership can help. I can help convert your periodic tactics into a comprehensive marketing program. I bring 20+ years of experience (I launched DRS in 2008) and the accompanying knowledge required to assess, develop and execute a program that includes everything marketing demands.