Most businesses start by doing their own marketing.
The founder writes the posts. Someone builds the website. A friend designs the logo. Someone’s nephew apparently “knows SEO”. And somehow, amongst all of this, a business starts to emerge.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with DIY marketing. In the early days, it can be remarkably effective. But what happens when the business grows and the marketing approach that worked at £500,000 turnover starts looking rather less convincing when you’re aiming for £5 million?
In Episode 5 of Marketing, Properly!, strategic marketing consultant Sean looks at the signs that a business may have outgrown its informal approach to marketing.
We explore how DIY marketing can gradually turn into accidental marketing, different people, agencies, channels and activities all doing useful things, but with nobody really joining the dots.
There’s also the founder bottleneck: when every campaign, website change, budget decision and piece of content still needs approval from the Managing Director. At that point, the problem isn’t necessarily time management. It may be that marketing has become too commercially important to manage informally.
We look at fragmented brands, disconnected specialist suppliers and the common mistake of trying to solve everything by hiring one heroic Marketing Manager expected to handle strategy, social media, SEO, PPC, design, video, CRM, events, PR, analytics and, naturally, be “good with AI”.
The episode also sets out five signs you’ve outgrown DIY marketing, and why the answer isn’t automatically to hire a full-time Marketing Director. The right solution might be an internal marketer, a small team, better agencies, fractional leadership, or simply a proper strategy.
Because the real question isn’t “Are we too big to do our own marketing?”
It’s “Has marketing become too important, complicated or commercially significant to manage informally?”
If it has, it may be time to start marketing the business you’re becoming, rather than the business you used to be.
Marketing, Properly! – practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable marketing question nobody else wants to ask.
Produced in Scotland.
