Ask a marketing team how things are going and there’s a reasonable chance you’ll hear one word: “Busy.”

Very busy. Incredibly busy.

Campaigns are launching. Content is being written. LinkedIn is being updated. Emails are being built. Reports are being produced. The CRM needs attention. There’s an exhibition coming up.

And somebody has scheduled another meeting to discuss what happened in the previous meeting.

Everyone is working extremely hard.

So why is the Managing Director still asking: “What is Marketing actually achieving?” 


In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean looks at one of marketing’s most persistent problems: confusing activity with effectiveness.

Marketing has an almost infinite supply of things it could be doing. New channels, new platforms, new campaigns and new technology are constantly being added, but very little ever seems to get removed.

The result can be a marketing function that is permanently busy without necessarily moving the business forward.

We look at why a lack of strategy creates more work, how Marketing can gradually become the company’s internal “request department”, and why technology and AI haven’t necessarily made marketers less busy, they’ve simply made it possible to produce considerably more stuff.

And that raises an increasingly important question: Just because we can produce more marketing, should we? 


We also look at the difference between measuring outputs and outcomes, why constantly overwhelmed teams have no time left to think, and why sometimes the most valuable decision a Marketing Director can make is: “We’re going to stop doing that.” 


There’s a practical suggestion too: alongside your marketing to-do list, create a marketing stop list. 


Look at everything you’re currently doing and ask why it exists, who it’s for, what it’s supposed to achieve and what would actually happen if you stopped.

Because good marketing isn’t about creating the maximum possible amount of marketing.

It’s about doing the smallest number of things capable of producing the greatest useful effect.

So next time someone tells you Marketing is incredibly busy, don’t automatically be reassured.

Ask: “Busy doing what?” 


And then ask the question that really matters: “Does it actually matter?”

Because a marketing team running at 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction isn’t high-performing.

It’s simply getting lost more efficiently.

Marketing, Properly! – practical marketing thinking for business owners, Managing Directors and marketers who want better decisions, clearer strategy and considerably less pointless activity. 


Produced in Scotland.