Most marketers eventually fail. Agencies get dropped. Freelancers replaced. Consultants forgotten.
Not because they lack skill or creativity, but because they fall in love with the act of marketing — and forget who’s paying for it.
They chase reach, impressions, followers, rankings, engagement, and clicks. They fill calendars, not pipelines. They obsess over creatives, campaigns, and consistency… but rarely connect the dots to customers, revenue, and retention. They mistake activity for progress.
Founders don’t pay for random acts of marketing. Businesses pay for growth.
When marketing loses its link to commercial outcomes, it becomes theatre — glossy decks and vague wins that never show up in the bank account.
Why Most Marketers Fail
The failure doesn’t happen overnight. It creeps in quietly. It starts when marketers forget that marketing is not the goal — growth is.
They fall into five traps:
1. Activity without accountability
They stay busy. Always “working on something.” But those hours rarely turn into sales conversations or revenue. The calendar looks full, but the pipeline is empty.
2. Metrics that don’t touch money
They measure success in likes, reach, and engagement. But none of that pays salaries or subscription costs. The reports look good, the numbers move — just not the ones that matter.
3. Tactics without a thesis
“Let’s do LinkedIn.” “We should try TikTok.” “We need SEO.” Each idea sounds smart in isolation, but without a commercial thesis — who, why, and what outcome — it’s random noise.
4. Brand with no buying triggers
Some marketers get so lost in the craft of branding that they forget its purpose: to help people buy. The result? Beautiful assets that never create action.
5. Reporting that flatters, not informs
They cherry-pick data that makes the work look better than it is. Vanity reporting feels good in the moment, but kills credibility when results stay flat.
What the Best Marketers Do Differently
The marketers who last —the ones who actually drive growth —think and act differently.
They operate more like commercial strategists than creative executors. Here’s what sets them apart:
1. They start with the customer, not the channel.
Every decision begins with real customer insight — what ideal customers are trying to get done, what holds them back, and why they switch.
2. They define a commercial thesis before spending a pound.
Each initiative is backed by a clear hypothesis: who it’s for, what it’s meant to change, how it will make money, and how success will be measured.
3. They report in pipeline and payback, not vanity metrics.
They know their CAC, LTV, conversion rates, and contribution margins. They track marketing’s link to revenue, not just reach.
4. They ship, learn, scale, and kill fast.
They treat marketing as a series of experiments — designed, tested, measured, iterated. No sacred cows.
5. They stay obsessed with the moment money changes hands — and why.
They study what triggers real purchase decisions and build around those moments.
Marketing Isn’t an Art Project
Marketing is a commercial function. Its purpose is to drive profitable demand.
If marketers can’t point to how their work ties to growth, they’re just guessing. If their reports don’t link to revenue, they’re merely performing. If they haven’t stopped something that didn’t work this month, they’re burning cash and energy.
The best marketers don’t just love marketing. They love what marketing makes possible — growth and the revenue that funds them in the first place.
How To Fix This
You don’t fix this with more tactics. You fix it by rebuilding marketing as a commercial engine. Here’s where to start:
1. Reconnect to the customer
Talk to real customers. Run Jobs-to-Be-Done interviews. Map out the Four Forces of Progress — what pushes them to change, what pulls them toward you, what habits hold them back, and what anxieties stop them.
2. Align with finance
Make friends with your CFO or whoever tracks revenue. Build a shared view of what counts as success. Tie every campaign to financial metrics — not just marketing ones.
3. Build a growth operating system
Adopt a sprint rhythm: plan, test, learn, scale, repeat. Keep a shared “growth board” that shows where every pound is going and what it’s returning.
4. Kill what doesn’t work
Every month, ask: what did we learn, what did we scale, and what did we stop? Killing bad ideas fast is what keeps good ones funded.
5. Report like an operator
Weekly pipeline reviews. Monthly revenue reviews. Cut the fluff and excuses. Demonstrate learning and accountability.
The Unlock Growth Approach
This philosophy is what drives everything I do at Unlock Growth.
I help founders and teams move away from random acts of marketing and build systems that connect every effort to commercial results.
We strip away the theatre, find the hidden levers that drive customer progress, and build a repeatable growth engine grounded in data, insight, and disciplined experimentation.
If your marketing feels busy but growth feels flat, it’s not a creativity problem. It’s a connection problem — between marketing and money.
Let’s fix that.
Book a Free Growth Hour — and let’s find the hidden levers in your business worth doubling down on.