We need to stop.  One of the easiest hacks in marketing is to put the cart before the horse.  And we’re all guilty of it.  I’m guilty of it.  Too often it’s easier to roll out yet another ad campaign or more collateral or another sweepstakes than it is to turn the lens inward and look at what we need to improve our core product.  Why?  Two reasons. One, it’s really freaking hard and two, we’re under pressure to hit short-term numbers.  It needs to change now. Otherwise marketers will continue to be the bane of our existence, hawking half-baked products with disingenuous pitches.  We need to stop putting the cart before the horse and do the hard work.

We need to take responsibility

Marketers, at our worst, leave the hard work to product and operations teams, washing our hands of responsibility for truly creating a product that markets itself.  Why?  Because  we often feel that we aren’t empowered to drive a quality product or improve internal processes like customer service.  I believe that’s more of a cop out than a reality.  It’s easier to feel helpless and say “that’s not my job” than it is to try to be of service across the organization to a department that is struggling to meet the unrealistic promises that you keep churning out to drive more customer acquisition.

It’s time to end that pity party and roll up your sleeves and do the hard work. Now.

We need to see the damage we’re creating

Marketing departments rarely make decisions that wipe out entire product lines or businesses.  That’s a good thing.  But what they do instead is far more subtle and insidious. And, I argue, equally as damaging in the long run.  Like “death by a thousand paper cuts,” marketing departments expand their claims just a bit, push out half-baked products that customers won’t love but won’t complain about, cut a return policy from 90 days to 30 days and make all manner of subtle changes that are better for the organization and worse for the customer.  Why?  Because it’s easy and it’s hard to see the negative impact of each minor change.

It would be better if these marketing decisions did set off nuclear explosions.  You’d be sure not to push that button. Unfortunately a minor annoyance like a paper cut is easily forgotten. And so goes the bit-by-bit march to a place where you’ve put your cart before your horse.

We need to think longer term, and teach our bosses how to do it too

When you push a claim or offer to get a few more heads in the door what you’re saying is that your priority is customer acquisition over customer satisfaction and retention.  You are trading near term dollars for long term relationships, brand equity and word of mouth opportunity.  The short term is the only term and you’re willing to sacrifice all the benefits that you know are accrued to those that take a longer look; but the pressure of now compels you to compromise.  we need to stop.

We need to tell our bosses why we need to stop.

Do the hard work now

We need to stop putting the cart before the horse.  As marketers it’s too easy to do.  We’re good at promotion – we better be anyway – but maybe we’re not good at helping design a better customer experience on the phone.  Well, we need to learn how to do it and be able to help our colleagues if we’re going to thrive and actually contribute to making people’s lives better.  We need to get involved with product decisions and advocate for our customers.  We need to beat back the compromises that are made in the name of timing and incremental pain and budget. We need to rage against mediocrity in our processes and products and fight for the promise that our customers are buying from us when they put up their hard-earned money for our products and services.

It has to start now.  We need to do the hard work. We need to put the promotion off for a quarter while we improve the support section of our web site.  We need to trade the print campaign for the live chat functionality on the web site.  We need to do more learning and listening and less hawking and pitching.

Only then will marketers create true value for the customers they’re trying to reach.  Only then will we put the horse where it belongs.  Up front.

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