Click-bait, pigeons, and big useless buckets

This past week, I’ve seen more than one smart person talking about how marketing is suddenly – all at once – more complex, dumber, and full of AI slop.

Which makes this just that bit more important today… I have 3 things for you that add to the mess – I’ll expand on each through the week, including alternatives for us to try:

Click-bait

I’m reaching out to guest on podcasts, so have been listening to a crazy amount of them lately to figure out which ones make the most sense. This episode title grabbed my attention:

Marketing with no money: Smart strategies for small business growth.

With such a catchy and motivating title… what do you reckon, just take a guess: Did it deliver? Did it even touch that topic? Scroll back up to the heading I’ve put it under for a clue, and I’ll get into it tomorrow.

Pigeons

Ever worked with a pigeon? They swoop in, flap their wings, shit on everything and fly away.

I worked with a marketing pigeon last week who made a proper mess of things – reminded me of why one needs to be cautious when engaging a “marketing expert” who asks almost no questions before diving in and… being a pigeon. Messy details to come.

Big useless buckets

I find the term “small business” painfully vague – it’s this massive, useless bucket that just about every business gets dropped into… and its not just unhelpful, it can be pretty damaging.

Here are some quick stats:

• Between 92-98% of businesses in Australia are classified as “small business” – which means:
  • A solo practice with exactly 1 employee and an annual turnover of $80,000… is a small business.
  • A coffee shop with 6 staff turning over $250k per year… is a small business.
  • A strata management company managing 100 buildings and turning over $5 or $6 million annually… is a small business.
  • A data and analytics consultancy specialising in machine learning and AI, who takes it’s staff and their families to Fiji every year for an all-expenses-paid trip, and turning over $20 million annually… is a small business.

So when you get search results like the ones below… while I’m sure these folks mean well – how the flip do you figure out which one applies to you without wasting hours watching them all, maybe retrofitting some of their advice, and just figuring it out?

Now I’m not a marketing expert, but I’m happy dishing out criticism when it comes to clarity (or lack of).

Let’s get clear on how to avoid confusing our potential clients, and what we can try instead.