Too much BUDGET is bad for marketing. Here’s why…

When you have too much budget, you can get in your own way of success.

It can organically take your focus away from building an “organic brand and growth engine” and build too much dependency on “paid reach & media” and spend larger percentage of your marketing budget on frivolous things.

In the nature of humans, we naturally lean on things that are easier, faster turn around and quick to measure. And that becomes an addiction especially when it seems to be working in the short term.

Some months ago, a Nigerian brand wasted a wild amount of money on marketing campaigns catering to the whims of the CEO.

I would like to keep the brand anonymous. But I was on the team.

They spent millions on an un-strategic signing of a certain celebrity so that the CEO’s daughter can meet her.

They also spent millions advertising on an equally un-strategic media property because the CEO thought that it was cool.

And they bought billboards near the CEO’s house so that he could get the impression that marketing dollars are being spent well.

During the lock-down, they paid some twitter clowns (I don’t want to call them influencers — all using parodies) to tweet about how the company was supporting Nigerians during the lock-down.

And their twitter account was suspended that day. All because the clowns they paid would used fake giveaway to drive engagement and tweeps reported the company's account.

They focused too much on “buying their way through user growth” and trying to buy love, which just does not work.

Here is the thing… There is SO MUCH that can be done within marketing at a much lower cost if you don’t fall back on the easier (relatively) path of “paid media & discount”

Force yourself to invest as much as you can on the organic engine of marketing — that underlying lever is far more sustainable, predictable and higher quality than anything you pay for.

Invest in content, copy, storytelling.

Content marketing is what is left of marketing.

Use that to drive organic growth — search engine, content virality, user engagement.

With organic, you build the base and the pillars.

With paid, you further built on it.

If you don’t have a solid and strong structure, the building might fall and you will never know what went wrong.

I’ve studied for 2+ years. And here are the top 3 reasons companies don’t produce quality content in volume:

1. Their metrics don’t incentivize them to do it.
2. The CEO asks “where are all the leads?” after 2 episodes of their podcast.
3. They’re not committed to the strategy. They write 2 posts. Don’t see a trillion leads, likes or twitter retweets. So they give up and go back to the same dumb stuff they were doing before.

I think a lot of companies still don’t realize that consumers are recognizing lazy marketing.

We see hundreds of ads daily, our minds have just tuned out to all the normal advertising we see.

If your not putting the extra work into creating something meaningful, your campaigns won’t get noticed.

The truth is, impressions don’t mean anything anymore, engagement does.

Be intentional about marketing strategy and goals to create the conditions for success.

Do you want short term quick returns?

Or long term sustainable growth?

If your product or service serves the need, has power to transform lives & system — you need to think about how to run the marathon & not a sprint.

But ball in your court squarely.