Marketing Falsehoods - Role Balagan & Quick Fixes
- Admin Devas
- Jan 30, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 7, 2022
Susan Friedman Becker - a Deva with years of experience in B2B Marketing - takes on the mishmash of new marketing titles and asks if there is any real strategy behind it.
A few words following my recent journey speaking with many startups and early stage B2B companies in the Israel "Startup Nation"....
I learned much about the B2B startup landscape recently as I qualified companies, searching for my next professional home. Given the time required to spend in a business environment, I believe that qualifying the match between you and a company should be viewed as a secondary home - even if it's virtual. After more years than I'd like to admit in the Israeli B2B industry, I pick up many red flags when speaking with prospective employers. I understand what environments fit my personality best and which will prove to be a negative factor in my life. I have decided to share my observations around this journey and many others as someone involved in what makes ours a "start-up" nation" from a marketing perspective, and I welcome comments and your observations as well.
During my search, I saw relatively new terms for marketers that didn't exist in the past, positions advertised as "Growth Marketing", "Performance Marketing", along with the older classic "Brand Marketing". I would like to hear from the people who came up with these position titles. Are they marketing professionals themselves? Did anyone give any thought to the implications of splitting roles between lead generation and brand building? Who decides the strategic direction of these two interwoven positions? What happens if the two professionals take different paths? I understand that if there is an VP of Marketing above the two, then the essence of the work of both can remain harmonious. But often in startups, there's budget for one position, and those in charge of planning the hiring strategy, decide on the basis of what?? That the marketing should be "performance based" or "growth based" - and think that brand is about colors and images...
Whoever proposed these word sequences for marketing positions were clearly looking for a quick fix and don't understand marketing. Yes, you can find leads without a clear direction of brand, and even sales qualified leads. But if you want to bring these leads further up the lead funnel - to sales - to satisfied customers who renew licenses after a year - the synchrony with brand as the expertise of the company - must be in place. Or put another way, your brand has to be as strong as your growth hacking.
And now, tell me why I am wrong... I'll be writing other posts on the sadder state of marketing falsehoods in our startup nation soon. For now, I have to return to work in my new home where they understand that brand brings the customers to their doorstep.... @Cymotive Technologies.
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