In one way or another, I’ve been “doing” online small business marketing since 2000. For the most part, I LOVE how marketing has evolved over the last 15 years – a true mix of strategy, messaging, creativity, technology, and analytics. I wake up every day pumped to be a doing what I’m doing. But there’s one aspect of marketing in 2015 that sometimes leaves me a bit numb.
Let me capture this feeling with a real-life analogy. Several years back, my family 
had a friend visit from a rural area of Kazakhstan (we’ll call her “Alina” for this post). It was the first time Alina had been outside Kazakhstan. Early in the visit we made a routine trip to the local grocery store to pick up a few things. Immediately, Alina was struck by the abundance of food choices and the fancy marketing displays throughout the store. But all that paled in comparison to what she experienced once we turned down the cereal aisle! She became a deer in headlights – a computer processor working so hard it began to smoke and repeat “CANNOT COMPUTE”! You see, she’d never had more than a couple types of cereal to choose from. Now she was being thrust into an entire supermarket aisle full pops, charms, krispies, crunches, boo-berries, franken-berries, flakes, pebbles, honey nuts, puffs, grahams, and loops. I love cereal as much as the next guy, but you have to admit, having over 200+ choices at a typical supermarket is pretty crazy.
Marketing is my thing, but I have ZERO problem admitting that some days I feel like Alina on the cereal aisle. It seems there’s a new social media platform, app, or tool introduced every few weeks that we should “leverage” to be more effective. There are multiple analytics platforms to help me manage my Google Analytics… what??!! There’s a daily vortex of swirling emails, tweets, likes, slide decks, white papers, follows, shares, and the top 10 ways to “X”. Then who can forget sales copy, SEO, PPC, conversion, marketing automation, content marketing, split testing, landing page optimization, webinars, CRM, responsive design… I need a drink!
So assuming at least some of you can relate to me (go ahead and admit it!), then here’s the question:
If sometimes the NOISE is overwhelming for those of us who do marketing for a living, what must your typical internal or external client be feeling? No surprise, most are pretty confused about what they should be doing. They need help.
No doubt, the marketing space is an exciting place to be. There is a BUNCH of cereal to choose from. But with that, I think there comes a responsibility to help our clients quiet the noise, rather than add to it!
Of course, some days there will still be a swirling vortex in my own head, but my biggest goal for 2015 (and beyond) is to help simplify things for my clients – helping them focus on the small set of marketing priorities that will help them drive revenue growth.
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