Savage Thoughts: All the Mistakes Marketers Make

Welcome to my newsletter. Each month, I share things that have recently inspired me. This February, I'm reflecting on some of the most interesting comments I received on a recent post about mistakes marketers make.

In January, I dropped a post to get a community pulse check about the state of marketing. 

Nearly 50 comments later, I received a more fiery response than anticipated. Based on your thoughts, we could all benefit from some self-reflection and shared learnings on how to up our marketing games. 

Here are five of the comments that stood out to me and my thoughts on transforming these marketing fails into wins.

Bill Winterberg, CFP® - Using AI to Beef Up Numbers

Bill comes in hot with the timely AI debate. 

Bill's comment about churning out high volumes of low-quality, AI-generated content to document high numbers for KPI tracking is an interesting one for many reasons and from many angles.

On the individual contributor level, if team members are using AI to beef up their metrics and make it look like they're doing a ton of work even though they're not, it's a mistake because it's an utter waste of time and effort.

If "AI abuse" is used on a team level, this can have even bigger implications. Using it to inflate business metrics can erode trust with customers and key partners and do serious damage to your business.

Charlie Riley - Spreading Your Authentic Self Too Thin With AI

For me, Charlie's point on AI brings the existential aspects of the AI problem further into focus.

It feels appropriate to unearth Dr. Ian Malcolm's cautionary wisdom about the proliferation of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park to set the scene here — just because you can doesn't mean you should. 

Sure, you can go faster and hop on 10 channels and churn out content fast with AI. But, in all likelihood, if you're using AI to tackle that much, you're spreading yourself too thin in the sincerity department. People underestimate what one or two channels can do for you if you grow them the right way. Focus on human interactions and making authentic connections, and you have a win in a world overrun by AI-generated content.

I see things differently than how Charlie does on the point of AI revolutionizing jobs. Just because you can fall into the trap of using AI incorrectly doesn't mean it can't transform the way you work. AI can help you take existing things you're doing and make them faster, easier, and better. Everyone's going to use it. So, if you don't, you're going to fall behind. The trick is to use it the right way to leap ahead.

Angelica N. - Ignoring Existing Customers

I love Angelica's comment. It's an amazing example of something glaringly obvious that people forget to do when they look at the math of what it takes to get a customer.

Take a SaaS business, for instance. You're likely getting a single-digit percentage conversion rate on your site overall. Then, you have to get people to activate, which is usually a meager percentage of those folks. After all that, those who have activated either opt into a trial or free account without ever purchasing the product. 

In other words, when it can take 10,000 visitors to your site to get one paying customer, your existing customers are exceptionally valuable. If these folks are happy, use your product consistently, and know it well, they will be your biggest champions and momentum-makers when it comes to driving new business. 

When many of us release a new product, we often forget the importance of getting our loyal base on board to help that product take flight and, hopefully, attract new users.

Dale Bertrand - Skipping Over Strategy

Dale's comment hits. All too often, marketers get obsessed with tactics, growth hacks, and short-term fixes. Sometimes, we'll mistakenly assume that a large audience on a channel means the demand for your product is there, too, even though it's not.

When you focus on tactics as opposed to strategy, you may find success on channels or discover techniques that don't translate into actual business results. If you're constantly going for quick wins or copying other people's tactics and you don't have your own strategy, you're choosing an aggressive short-term mindset over long-term success.

Kiley Brouillet - The Perils Of Virtue Signaling

Kiley hits on something we've all grappled with as marketers in the past five years. Should you or shouldn't you show your support for a specific cause?

My take: there are too many causes and too many things to support. If you support them all, at best, you dilute your intention, and, at worst, you seem insincere.

If there's a cause that you believe in that's aligned with your business, by all means, support it. You better get behind it, you better talk about it, you better help and promote it. But, if you're supporting it for the sake of looking virtuous, your customers will, at best, lose sight of what it is you actually do. 

Think of it this way — there's a limited number of things you can put up on the wall in your house, just like there's a limited number of things you can put up on your social profiles. Should you change these things next week when another topic to support comes up? Or, should you try to be a good person and let your actions speak for themselves?

I'd love to hear your takes on any of the above or anything else you're thinking. Drop your thoughts on marketing mistakes that are vexing you in the comments.