The Curse of the Marketing Guru

Like water and fire, too much of a good thing can sometimes hurt you.

Are you trying to replicate the marketing gurus?

It’s a scene more common than you think.  You’ve done your research, picked your short-term marketing strategy, and it’s a go.

Except that you (or your manager) follow some marketing guru on Instagram in an effort to keep up with the trends. Another new tactic popped up in your social media feed. And so the marketing whiplash begins.   

First, the algorithms have you pegged as a consumer of marketing guru advice.  It begins feeding you more, and more, and more marketing advice. 

Down the rabbit hole you go!

Next thing you know, you're bombarded with articles and videos that promise:

• Endless streams of leads if you just use their formula

• Double your sales if you just use their process

• Triple the results in half the time if you just use their method

  
  

Even better when they promise that AI will do it for a fraction of the time and cost without much human input or oversight.

It’s difficult to resist the promise of effortless leads and endless sales. Who doesn’t want that? 

So maybe you find yourself switching your plan, your formula, your method midstream - again and again, because a new expert promised a different way.  Or maybe your manager forwards an article or a reel to you over the weekend, insisting that THIS must be the reason why the leads aren’t highly qualified or conversions are slow.

If you’re switching your strategy every few weeks or months - is it any wonder that your lead generation or sales pipeline hasn’t been magically transformed yet? 

Almost all of these marketing experts have valuable insights and strategies that work. That’s not the problem. The problem is that:

• Almost all marketing strategies take time to work (if results were instant, we’d all be billionaires).

• And almost all marketing strategies change over time (even the big gurus change their marketing strategies every now and then).

• Almost all marketing strategies require some thoughtful testing and insightful analysis.  

• No marketing strategy is guaranteed to work for every single business. 

The way an estate lawyer, a local coffee shop, a B2B document storage company, or a white-label software company markets their products or services are going to be completely different. In fact, the way you market vs. the way your competitors markets should be a little different too!

Stop chasing the “perfect strategy” and start optimizing for a solid strategy.

I would argue that spending your time trying to find that elusive “perfect strategy” is taking time and resources away from making your good strategy even better. Every time you distract yourself or your team by trying to implement the advice-of-the-week, you are taking time away from your existing strategy. 

Think about it: if you’ve already tried chasing multiple trends or guru strategies - did they magically solve all of your marketing and sales pipeline problems?  If the answer is no, then it’s time to take a different approach. 

While it’s important to stay current and agile, too many methods can be too much of a good thing. The job of the marketing strategist is to keep up with the trends (because they do change rapidly) but curate a steady strategy that makes sense for:

• Your brand

• Your differentiators

• Your ideal clients

• Your human resources available

• Your budget

Ask yourself: is it worth it?

So the next time someone forwards you a YouTube video with the comment “we need to start doing this asap,” take a breath and examine this like you would with ANY business decision.  

1. Test any changes to your marketing plan for a certain time frame.  Start with your current plan. What’s working and what’s not?  

• For anything that’s not currently working, be open to new advice and methods. 

• Set a time frame for testing the new method: Will you try it for 3 months? 6 months? 9 months? 

• Once you’ve committed, use your time (or your team’s time) to stay focused on the plan and create better marketing, watch the details, optimize at the ground level each week.

2. If you choose to integrate new methods or different strategies, choose wisely.  Every piece of advice is going to come with some “proof” that it works. And it probably does work, in many cases. But most of the time, you can’t implement everything. The question is:

• Will this method work for your business?

• Is testing this method worth taking away resources from your existing plan?

3. Don’t change too many things at once - you’ll never know what worked and what didn’t. 

When lead generation and sales conversions are down, you’ll be tempted to change everything and anything. I would caution that this comes with a downside: you won’t be able to accurately measure what’s working and what’s not.  

• If your new strategy isn’t working, you’ll never know which factor is driving prospects away.  

• If it IS working, you’ll never know which efforts to dial up and which efforts you don’t have to bother with anymore, because you won’t know which one caused lead generation or sales conversions to improve. 

I’m a marketing manager and content creator, so I integrate the advice of other marketers (both the big names and the not-so-big names) and I run my own tests. Each client has a different marketing strategy integrating timeless principles and current trends. But I do my best to resist the marketing whiplash by giving in to the allure of every new tactic. 

I’ve seen first-hand how well meaning marketing teams chase trends without locking down the basics.  It’s very difficult to remain steadfast when sales are down - that’s usually when desperate teams look for quick fixes. There is a lot of great advice out there, and you can always improve your marketing. Doing it methodically, mindfully, and strategically will almost always yield better long term results. 

Christine McShane is a content marketer manager and copywriter at Christine McShane Creative. She creates simple and effective marketing strategies for small brands (through private 1:1 work and for agencies), including crafting overall brand marketing, social media strategies, and email marketing. Want help? Contact Christine McShane Creative here. 

These images have been generated by AI to illustrate the points made in this 100% human-written article.