No-one's an "expert marketer" any more

Being a consultant is a delicate balance between assuming the position of an expert (because that’s what clients want to pay for), and the reality that marketing is changing way too fast for anyone to really know what they’re doing.

The marketing channels, online platforms, tactics, and audience moods are all evolving so quickly that what worked a few years ago is often no longer relevant. Throw in a pandemic, a time of enormous international geopolitical uncertainty, and domestic culture wars, and reaching your audiences when they want to hear from you is super tricky. Not to mention the paradigm-shaking introduction of AI.

Like everyone else, I’m trying to keep abreast of how AI is changing both how consumers navigate the world (myself included), and how it can support running a business. So I’m feeling pressure to appear expert in an area that no-one really gets because it’s too new and still evolving.

If we take it as read that there’s very little certainty right now, and there are constantly shifting sands, how do we model stability for our clients who are scared?

Honestly, I think frameworks and fundamental strategy are a way to lay foundations, and experiments and constant learning are the way to cope.

1. Most stable: Brand strategy - the heart of you

   1. Who you are (mission/vision/values) - this is the heart of it and this can evolve, gradually

   2. Who your audience is and what they want from you - this can change, and if it does, everything else changes

   3. Your messaging - What you want to say to your audience, that they want to hear - this only changes if your audience changes

      
      

2. Business strategy - this will change over time

   1. What you’re trying to achieve as a business - this will change over time as your goals change

   2. What you offer the world and how you package that up - this can stay the same, or change. You can run experiments here too

      
      

3. Least stable: Marketing strategy - these are the experiments you want to run and will change the most often.

   1.  Which marketing channels you use

   2. How you use them

      
      

Sometimes, when clients are faced with a business challenge - let’s say for the first time they’re not getting the steady pipeline of leads they’re used to, they want to put everything up for grabs - how they do their business, how they market it, where they operate. And then you’re trying too many new things at once and it’s hard to say what worked when you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping something will stick.

At this point, they want an expert. They want someone to tell them what to do, because they don’t know what to do next and they are feeling the pressure of payroll, bills and often unfamiliar scarcity.

But a white knight swooping in, and fixing everything for them isn’t actually what they need. Because there are no experts right now, and anyone who says they are is selling you snake oil.

Let’s take AI:

• If you’ve been doing marketing for 30+ years, you have the perspective gained from hard-earned experience to be able to guide clients through tough times, because you’ve been there, done that. But you’re not an expert in AI, because it’s brand new.

• If you’re specializing in AI marketing, great, you’re in it every day and you’re seeing what’s working and what’s not. But in the same way that no-one saw DeepSeek coming, how do you know what AI will do to your client’s businesses next year?

• If you’re a large digital marketing company testing things across lots of clients - I give you the most credence. Not because you’re an expert, but because you’re running experiments at scale and you’re seeing the results right now. Again, you’re not able to see the future, but you have your finger on the pulse.

  
  

I think my approach is going to need to be twofold:

1. Get really clear on the stuff that’s stable - the brand strategy that’s always true, and the business strategy that’s true right now. That way my clients and I have an agreed-upon base to start from.

   
   

2. Get really good at running targeted marketing experiments,

   1. Don’t assume anything.

   2. Don’t assume that what worked or didn’t work last year will work right now.

   3. Be prepared to be wrong, and build that into the process - this is the hardest sell, but absolute worst case scenario, if nothing that I do works, we know sooner rather than later and we can cut ties without resentment building on either side.

      
      

This will require a couple of things from me and my clients:

• I will need to be really clear on what success looks like and how long we let the experiment run for before we decide if it’s successful or unsuccessful. I find the latter the hardest part. Sometimes things work well, but not as fast as you want or need. Sometimes things don’t work. Sometimes things work for one client, but not another, even in the same industry.

• I will need my clients to stick with the experiment for the duration and not change too many variables at once.

• I will need to be super transparent about where we are in the experiment and what’s going well, and what’s not.

• I will need to be prepared to kill my darlings and focus solely on what is working, not what I like to do.

  
  

Operating in an environment of constant change and uncertainty is exhausting. But that’s our reality. So we have to deal with it. I believe part of that is putting away assumptions of certainty and creating frameworks that help you roll with the punches, because they’re going to keep on coming.

I also think part of it is sharing our thinking and learning. What are we seeing that works or doesn’t work? Because we’re all just figuring it out.