{"id":5827,"date":"2025-12-04T13:35:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T13:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/04\/3-bitter-truths-all-marketers-need-to-hear-right-now\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T13:35:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T13:35:25","slug":"3-bitter-truths-all-marketers-need-to-hear-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/04\/3-bitter-truths-all-marketers-need-to-hear-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"3 bitter truths all marketers need to hear right now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I saw a LinkedIn post from today\u2019s master declaring, \u201cMarketing\u2019s job is not to drive revenue,\u201d I did a little shimmy and thought, \u201c<em>She gets it!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We struck up a conversation, and I discovered an <strong>entire pharmacopeia of tough pills to swallow.<\/strong> \u201cI love talking smack about marketing!\u201d she grinned.<\/p>\n<p>I asked for three of the bitterest truths that marketers need to hear. And, folks\u2026 it\u2019s time to take your medicine.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"cta_button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hubspot.com\/cs\/ci\/?pg=bcbe2652-03f9-49fe-b517-acedc47b6f27&amp;pid=53&amp;ecid=&amp;hseid=&amp;hsic=\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"hs-cta-img \" style=\"height: auto !important; width: auto !important; max-width: 100% !important;border-width: 0px; \/*hs-extra-styles*\/; margin: 0 auto; display: block; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px\" alt=\"Click Here to Subscribe to Masters in Marketing\" height=\"58\" width=\"431\" src=\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/53\/bcbe2652-03f9-49fe-b517-acedc47b6f27.png\" align=\"middle\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" width=\"560\" height=\"560\" alt=\"moni-oloyede-mim-blog\" style=\"height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: 560px;\" class=\"lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/53.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net\/hub\/53\/hubfs\/moni-oloyede-mim-blog.webp?width=560&amp;height=560&amp;name=moni-oloyede-mim-blog.webp\"><\/p>\n<h2>Moni Oloyede<\/h2>\n<h3>Founder, Educator at <a href=\"https:\/\/momartech.com\/\">MO MarTech<\/a><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Fun fact: <\/strong>Moni hails from the same town as Edward Norton, Aaron McGruder, Christian Siriano, and Druski. (Do you know it without googling?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Lesson 1: Marketing\u2019s job is not to drive revenue.<\/h2>\n<p>Every CMO in the audience just reflexively jerked towards the \u201cunsubscribe\u201d button. Stick with us here.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem with being focused on revenue is that your marketing feels like you\u2019re just throwing spaghetti at the wall,\u201d says Oloyede. \u201cYou just chase leads all day. <strong>\u2018They didn\u2019t click my email, let me move on to the next topic, and see if that works. And you jump and jump and jump.\u2019<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was raised in the digital marketing space. I didn\u2019t know a time before that. And when I went to grad school, I realized: <strong>We\u2019re not actually doing marketing. <\/strong>We\u2019re sending out content and getting leads. But we\u2019re not building relationships, communicating effectively, and trying to build affinity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t serve two masters. If I serve the CEO, that\u2019s revenue. If I\u2019m going to serve the customer, I have to slow down. I have to have patience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" width=\"650\" height=\"433\" alt=\"\u201cThe problem with being focused on revenue is that your marketing feels like you\u2019re just throwing spaghetti at the wall. You just chase leads all day.&quot;\" style=\"height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: 650px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; display: block;\" class=\"lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/53.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net\/hub\/53\/hubfs\/moni-oloyede-mim-relationships.webp?width=650&amp;height=433&amp;name=moni-oloyede-mim-relationships.webp\"><\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Lesson 2: Demand gen is not a strategy.<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThe word \u2018strategy\u2019 gets thrown around a lot and it is bastardized to hell. Demand gen is not a strategy. Demand gen is the <em>execution <\/em>of a strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tell me if this next part sounds familiar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA typical marketing campaign is: Let\u2019s pick a topic, create content around that topic, then collect leads and just <em>email the crap outta them <\/em>until they die. That\u2019s not a strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJuxtapose 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. <em>That\u2019s <\/em>a strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Instead of one-off pieces of content that jump from topic to topic, all marketing efforts \u2014 whether lead gen, demand gen, or brand awareness \u2014 fed back to Dove\u2019s core message.<\/p>\n<p>And that message didn\u2019t come from Dove simply throwing spaghetti at the wall until they found the noodle that stuck.<\/p>\n<p>Oloyede lays out the process: \u201cI\u2019m hearing my audience say they\u2019re scared to move forward with new software. They\u2019re worried about lack of resources. This is my campaign to combat that messaging. These are the activities that support that campaign. We\u2019re going to run it for a year. Our baseline metrics are going to be trials. I need six months to get X amount of trials. If we\u2019re missing the mark, here\u2019s what I\u2019m going to adjust. If we hit the mark, you give me X more dollars to expand. Agree? Agree. <em>THEN <\/em>you go execute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s slow. It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s laborious. And as AI allows competitors to flood every channel with self-same slop, it\u2019s the only thing that will stand out.<\/p>\n<h2>Lesson 3: Technology second.<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cTechnology is not going to fix your marketing problems,\u201d Oloyede says. \u201cPeople think I\u2019m an anti-technologist. I\u2019m not. [The technology is] just out of order.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whether it\u2019s AI, analytics software, or even (gulp) your CRM, it\u2019s important to realize that these are tools that do tasks. The why behind those tasks has to come first.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTechnology is only going to execute, manage, and operationalize. That\u2019s it. It works when it\u2019s supporting good, foundational marketing principles. So if you don\u2019t understand your market, if you\u2019re not confident in your message, if you don\u2019t understand your audience psychologically, emotionally, culturally, then you have to go back to the drawing board.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And once you\u2019ve got all that, you can set your tools on autopilot, right? Not quite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to add in those human touches to all those digital tactics. [Currently,] we send leads to a 10-touch automated nurture campaign and then over to Sales to see if there\u2019s a buying intent. And then discard them if they\u2019re not ready to buy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat if, instead, you invited them to a small, intimate focus group? Or a premiere event? Some kind of human touch where they saw you face-to-face. How much more likely are they to open your email?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And here we rediscover that ancient marketing wisdom nearly lost to the ages:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople buy from people. People buy from people they like, they trust, they have a connection with. The more you do that, the more you\u2019re going to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>THAT. <\/em>That is<em> <\/em>marketing\u2019s job.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"cta_button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hubspot.com\/cs\/ci\/?pg=e1f0958d-1b15-418e-b4db-45ee531f71af&amp;pid=53&amp;ecid=&amp;hseid=&amp;hsic=\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"hs-cta-img \" style=\"height: auto !important; width: auto !important; max-width: 100% !important;border-width: 0px; \/*hs-extra-styles*\/; margin: 0 auto; display: block; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px\" alt=\"Click Here to Subscribe to Masters in Marketing\" height=\"613\" width=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/53\/e1f0958d-1b15-418e-b4db-45ee531f71af.png\" align=\"middle\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" style=\"min-height:1px!important;width:1px!important;border-width:0!important;margin-top:0!important;margin-bottom:0!important;margin-right:0!important;margin-left:0!important;padding-top:0!important;padding-bottom:0!important;padding-right:0!important;padding-left:0!important; \" class=\"lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/track.hubspot.com\/__ptq.gif?a=53&amp;k=14&amp;r=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.hubspot.com%2Fmarketing%2F3-bitter-truths-all-marketers-need-to-hear-right-now&amp;bu=https%253A%252F%252Fblog.hubspot.com%252Fmarketing&amp;bvt=rss\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n<p>When I saw a LinkedIn post from today\u2019s master declaring, \u201cMarketing\u2019s job is not to drive revenue,\u201d I did a little shimmy and thought, \u201cShe gets it!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}