Marketers: Are We Getting Dumb?
Otilia Otlacan
Good morning, you fellow marketers! Well, you do not have to
give me that look, there is always a morning coming up
somewhere (what a cheap cliche!)
Have you been online later? I suppose so... Was there nothing
to bother you, on the thousands of sites dedicated to
marketers, or at least claiming to contain marketing-related
resources? Personally, I cannot stop being continuously
distressed by a curious writing phenomenon: the enormous amount
of articles with numbers included in their titles. Still do not
know what am I talking about? Here are some dreadful examples:
"5 Steps to Easy...", "20 Tips for Better...", X – that, Y –
other, all of them promising either dramatically raise in your
marketing audience, incredible sales boost, the perfect
marketing plan, the greatest sales letter ever written,
costless promo campaigns. The list can go on forever and keeps
on amazing you of how easy a marketer's life would be if we
just follow those "guidelines", "rules" and "tips".
Is that true? Have those writers discovered some sort of a
simple wisdom that the rest of us are not yet aware of? Hardly
possible... though this aspect is not striking people,
otherwise why would we see so many pieces of unprofessional
writing?
With that type of articles, writers bring a huge disservice to
the professional marketing world. First, they promote the idea
that "marketing" is a simple thing to do. Only if you are
mentally retarded (no offence meant), you do not understand and
cannot apply those easy simple rules, glorious pieces of advice.
Take some time and look at the titles: almost all of them
contain cheap pick-up words such as "easy", "simple", "tips",
inducing the idea that the subject is available to anyone. No,
it is not, and we must face it.
Second, a beginner entrepreneur seeking information on how to
start / how to develop his business might reach the conclusion
that marketing, sales, promotions, are fields that do not
require a professional to handle them, it is sufficient for him
to follow step by step the "great tips" he finds online at every
corner. Why then we wonder when so many small businesses fall
apart around us?
At last, students who are involved in any major related to
marketing, they might fall into the trap of thinking theory and
study is, well, not quite important. Any problem can be solved
by applying some of the tricks the online world is full of, and
here they are, no need of thinking, no need of developing a
strategy... why did they register for expensive, time –
consuming universities in the first place?
You might say this sounds paranoid, and you would not be too
wrong. The purpose of the above statements, with all their
intended exaggeration, is to ring a bell.
Another issue is that of the audience and the purpose of the
writings discussed here. Since they are published mostly on
sites claiming to offer marketing resources for the
professionals, we might assume this is the target audience.
Still, it is very doubtful that true professionals would bother
to read something entitled "Increase your sales – 10 easy tips",
unless some morbid curiosity or a weird sense of humor drives
them on. Why? Because they know there is nothing new under the
sun, those "tips" are just rewritten old principles, same
content with a different cover. Taking a better look at the
content of the "incriminating" works, one can recognize the
principles taught in school, now extremely summarized and
simplified, written in a very accessible language level, and in
most of the cases presented as the authors' very piece of mind.
Well, if the professionals are not the audience, then who is?
Students? They are stuck with their bulky books trying to
become the next Philip Kotler... Maybe business owners? No...
they must have either hired someone or they got busy running
the business themselves, unaware of the Z number of advices
waiting to be read.
It means we return to the first assumption, that the number –
entitled articles address to the marketing professionals. And,
hey, almost forgot to mention that the author is, in most
cases, a "marketing guru" (I am terrified by this guru thing!)
From this point, the real worries begin: since when the level
of professionalism lowered so much? Are we losing our creative
thinking? Can't we come up with something new anymore? Do we
need those cheap works to have us promoted?
... Finally, are we getting dumb?
About The Author: Otilia is a certified Marketing consultant
with expertise in e-Marketing and e-Business. She developed and
teach her own online course in Principles of Marketing
You can contact Otilia through her Marketing resources portal at
http://www.teawithedge.com
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