SPECIAL SERIES: The 7 Deadly Sins of Marketing | Bathroom Break #51 🚽

Summary

Podcast Summary: SPECIAL SERIES: The 7 Deadly Sins of Marketing | Bathroom Break #51 🚽

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Marketing Millennials
• Host: Daniel Murray
• Episode: SPECIAL SERIES: The 7 Deadly Sins of Marketing | Bathroom Break #51 🚽
• Release Date: April 14, 2025
• Description: In this special episode of "Bathroom Break," Daniel Murray collaborates with Jay Schwedelson from the "Do This, Not That" podcast to dissect the seven deadly sins of marketing. Geared towards marketing professionals seeking actionable insights, this episode delves deep into common pitfalls and strategic missteps that can derail effective marketing campaigns.

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Introduction to the Bathroom Break Series

[00:01] Daniel Murray:
Daniel introduces the "Bathroom Break" series as a quick, 10-minute deep dive into essential marketing tips, perfect for multitasking listeners. He humorously suggests that listeners might choose to listen while taking a bathroom break but advises against trying both simultaneously for maximum benefit.

[00:13] Jay Schwedelson:
Jay echoes Daniel's introduction, emphasizing the collaborative nature of the series where they share concise marketing tips. He sets the stage for the episode's focus on the "Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing."

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1. Marketing to Everyone vs. Targeting One Persona

[02:03] Daniel Murray:
Daniel identifies the first sin as marketing to a broad audience. He argues that targeting everyone leads to vague messaging and diluted campaigns, making brands indistinguishable from competitors. Instead, he advocates for "marketing to one person"—focusing on a specific persona who is most likely to purchase the product.

Quote:
"Market to one person. Because if nobody sees themselves and your brand, then nobody's gonna buy your brand."
– Daniel Murray [02:03]

[02:42] Jay Schwedelson:
Jay concurs, reinforcing the idea that trying to appeal to everyone results in appealing to no one. He highlights the importance of identifying and focusing on a specific target audience to ensure messaging resonates.

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2. Reliance on Best Practices

[03:29] Jay Schwedelson:
Jay criticizes the blind adherence to "best practices," labeling them as often outdated and ineffective. He points out that many companies regurgitate old strategies, neglecting to test their validity in current contexts. Jay urges marketers to question and test best practices rather than follow them unquestioningly.

Quote:
"The overwhelming majority of best practices are garbage. They're outdated by the time they become a best practice, they're useless."
– Jay Schwedelson [03:29]

[03:29] Daniel Murray:
Daniel agrees, adding that following best practices can make marketers five years behind the curve, as these practices have already become mainstream and potentially obsolete.

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3. Neglecting the Importance of Brand

[04:03] Daniel Murray:
Daniel introduces the third sin: treating brand as optional or conflating it with performance marketing. He clarifies that brand encompasses a company's reputation, every touchpoint, and the overall vibe that differentiates it from competitors. Daniel emphasizes that investing in brand is crucial and that brand and performance marketing should support each other.

Quote:
"Brand is your reputation. It's every touch point. It's your vibe. It's the reason people choose you when your product isn't different from everybody else."
– Daniel Murray [04:03]

[04:30] Jay Schwedelson:
Jay builds on Daniel's point by discussing the pitfalls of "last click attribution" in performance marketing. He argues that relying solely on last-click data ignores the long-term, multi-channel efforts that keep a brand top of mind for consumers.

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4. Overreliance on Last Click Attribution

[04:30] Jay Schwedelson:
Jay identifies last click attribution as a significant mistake in marketing. He explains that attributing conversions solely to the last interaction a consumer has with a brand overlooks the cumulative effect of ongoing marketing efforts. Jay advocates for a more holistic approach, recognizing that marketing is "surround sound" and requires presence across multiple channels over time.

Quote:
"Marketing is surround sound. You need to constantly be everywhere at all times. So when the person's in market for what it is that you sell, you are top of mind."
– Jay Schwedelson [04:30]

[05:26] Daniel Murray:
Daniel expands on this by stressing the importance of strategic planning over mere tactical execution. He cautions against jumping into tactics like paid ads without a solid strategy underpinning them.

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5. Skipping Strategy in Favor of Tactics

[05:26] Daniel Murray:
Daniel highlights the fifth sin as skipping strategy and diving straight into tactics. He observes that many marketers rush to implement tactics like paid ads, podcasts, or content calendars without defining the underlying strategy, target audience, or revenue ties. Daniel stresses the necessity of developing a comprehensive strategy first to ensure that chosen tactics align with overall marketing goals.

Quote:
"Come up with a strategy and then choose what tactics fit into that strategy, not the opposite way around."
– Daniel Murray [05:26]

[06:19] Jay Schwedelson:
Jay agrees, sharing his own experiences of implementing ineffective tactics due to a lack of strategic focus. He underscores the importance of strategic planning to avoid releasing "garbage" content and ensures marketing efforts are effective and purposeful.

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6. Relying on Industry Averages

[06:19] Jay Schwedelson:
Jay condemns the reliance on industry averages for metrics like open rates and click-through rates. He argues that every brand is unique in terms of offers, creativity, and customer perception, making industry benchmarks irrelevant. Instead, Jay recommends benchmarking against one's own past performance to drive continuous improvement.

Quote:
"Ignore industry averages. They take you down the wrong path."
– Jay Schwedelson [06:19]

[07:26] Daniel Murray:
Daniel concurs, advising marketers to educate their leaders on the importance of individualized benchmarking. He warns against using industry averages as a performance yardstick, emphasizing that each campaign and strategy is distinct.

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7. [Humorous Segment: Chipotle vs. Poo Tropical]

[07:48] Jay Schwedelson:
The seventh sin takes a humorous turn as Jay playfully advises avoiding Chipotle in favor of a fictional "Poo Tropical." This segment serves as a light-hearted conclusion to the serious discussion on marketing sins.

[07:58] Daniel Murray:
Daniel humorously counters by sharing a negative experience at Poo Tropical, reinforcing the joke and bringing a fun end to the episode.

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Conclusion and Personal Anecdotes

[09:02] Daniel Murray & Jay Schwedelson:
As the conversation winds down, Daniel and Jay share personal anecdotes about birthdays and express camaraderie. They encourage listeners to follow their respective podcasts and engage with the "Marketing Millennials" community.

[10:34] Daniel Murray:
Daniel wraps up the episode by promoting the "Bathroom Break" series, inviting listeners to suggest future marketing topics and engage via LinkedIn.

[09:52] Jay Schwedelson:
Jay concludes with an enthusiastic shout-out to the Florida Gators, adding a personal touch and reinforcing the friendly rapport between the hosts.

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Key Takeaways:

1. Target Specific Audiences: Avoid broad targeting; focus on a well-defined persona to enhance messaging effectiveness.
2. Question Best Practices: Test and validate best practices to ensure they are relevant and effective for your specific context.
3. Prioritize Brand Building: Invest in brand reputation and ensure it complements performance marketing efforts.
4. Adopt Holistic Attribution Models: Move beyond last-click attribution to recognize the multifaceted nature of marketing influences.
5. Develop Robust Strategies: Establish clear marketing strategies before selecting tactics to ensure alignment with overall goals.
6. Create Custom Benchmarks: Use internal benchmarks instead of industry averages to measure and improve performance accurately.
7. Maintain a Sense of Humor: Even in serious discussions, maintaining a light-hearted approach can engage listeners and make complex topics more relatable.

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Notable Quotes:

• Daniel Murray:
  "Market to one person. Because if nobody sees themselves and your brand, then nobody's gonna buy your brand."
  [02:03]

• Jay Schwedelson:
  "The overwhelming majority of best practices are garbage. They're outdated by the time they become a best practice, they're useless."
  [03:29]

• Daniel Murray:
  "Brand is your reputation. It's every touch point. It's your vibe. It's the reason people choose you when your product isn't different from everybody else."
  [04:03]

• Jay Schwedelson:
  "Ignore industry averages. They take you down the wrong path."
  [06:19]

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Final Thoughts:

This episode of "Bathroom Break" offers a comprehensive exploration of common marketing pitfalls, delivering actionable insights for marketers striving to refine their strategies. Through engaging dialogue and expert perspectives, Daniel Murray and Jay Schwedelson provide valuable guidance on avoiding the seven deadly sins of marketing, ensuring listeners are equipped to enhance their marketing effectiveness and drive business success.

For more insights and tips, follow Daniel Murray on Twitter and LinkedIn, and join The Marketing Millennials community on LinkedIn and Instagram. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Marketing Millennials newsletter for the latest updates and strategies.

Transcript

[Daniel Murray]

Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marking tips or use the bathroom. Or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.

[Jay Schwedelson]

This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials, and me, Jay Schwedelson from the do this, not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. We are back for another bathroom break. I'm Jay Schwedelson from Do this, not that Podcast. And I'm here with the great Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials podcast. And today, we're going to be ripping through the seven deadly sins of marketing. But before we get to that, I want to know something. We were just talking about that you had to drive somewhere, and I'm curious about something. Are you, like, an aggressive driver? Do you honk at people? Do you go fast? Are you like, hey, man, doesn't matter. I'll get there when I get there.

[Daniel Murray]

One thing about me is I lived in LA for seven years, so I got used to having to be patient as a driver. If I'm late, then I start getting into a little panicky. But I think as I got a little older, my little road ranges got still. But what about you?

[Jay Schwedelson]

Oh, I'm. I'm horrible. I. I get honked at. At. I don't honk at people because I drive pretty slow, and it drives my wife crazy how slow I drive. She basically thinks it's dangerous how slow I drive.

[Daniel Murray]

That's Ari's dad, too. Ari's dad will be driving, like 60 on a 65, and everybody behind him is like, go, dude, go.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my vow. I don't care. I'll get there. And everyone, he's just chill. All right? But what's not chill is today's episode we're going to rip through right now. The seven deadly sins of marketing. There's things that just forget it. Don't do it. Don't think about it. Whatever. Daniel, kick it off. What do you got first?

[Daniel Murray]

This one might sound basic, but I always need people to remember this is marketing to everybody. I think that is one of the biggest deadly sins that I see. And the reason why I say this is because if you market to everyone, your messaging gets vague, your campaigns are diluted. You don't have you're not different from everybody. So you have to market to one person. Because if nobody sees themselves and your brand, then nobody's gonna buy your brand. So all your messaging, you should think about marketing to one person. Who's that? One person that is gonna buy your product.

[Jay Schwedelson]

I totally agree with you. When you market to everybody, you're marketing to nobody. And one for me that has always stuck in my mind is about best practices. You'll go to a meeting o best practice says we should do this. The overwhelming majority of best practices are garbage. They're outdated by the time they become a best practice, they're useless. And every company that has like a resource tab on their site and they have a blog and they're putting out content, this is the best practice for this. That whatever, they're just regurgitating old information. And whatever you think is a best practice, you have to test into to see if it's true. And whatever is taboo in your organization that says, oh, we could never do that. That would never work. We're not allowed to do that. That is probably what you need to test first. So I think best practices are actual garbage. What do you got?

[Daniel Murray]

I agree on that. If you do best practices, that you're probably five years behind the curve because it's become mainstream. The next deadly sin I have for you is thinking brand is optional and also thinking brand is in performance marketing. I think a lot of people get caught up between brand and branding. Brand isn't your fonts, your colors, a manifesto that you have in your Google Docs buried somewhere. It's brand is your reputation. It's every touch point. It's your vibe. It's the reason people choose you when your your product isn't different as different than everybody. So stop thinking you can't invest in brand. And also I get annoyed. All marketing is performance marketing. I don't care what you're doing. So brand helps performance, performance helps brand. So stop thinking you can't do brand marketing.

[Jay Schwedelson]

And I want to build on that for a second. When you're talking about performance marketing, I want to talk about last click attribution. This is probably the biggest mistake in marketing. Takes people down the wrong path where you're running a search ad, you're on a paid social campaign, you sen out an email and then the person clicks on the thing. They sign up for the webinar, they ask for a demo, they buy that direct to consumer product. And then you assign the fact that you got this customer, this lead or this opportunity from that click from that thing that they did, which is complete nonsense and garbage. Marketing is surround sound. You need to constantly be everywhere at all times. So when the person's in market for what it is that you sell, you are top of mind. And yeah, they might have clicked on that, that ad at that moment, but it's because of that year long effort that you've been doing. So if your, your budgeting and your planning is based on last click attribution, it is probably the, the biggest fail that you can have in marketing.

[Daniel Murray]

I want to build on a little bit of talking about running ads and picking channels and all that stuff. I think one of the biggest deadly sins in marketing is skipping strategy and going straight to tactics. And what I mean by that I always hear like, hey, we need to run paid ads, but who you running those paid ads to? What's the offer? What's happened next after the offer? Oh, we need a podcast. Cool. What is the hook of the product? Who's the podcast for? How does that tie to revenue? Oh, we need a 40 post content calendar. What's the strategy? Why? What are the posts? A lot of people think busy equals effective in marketing and you need the reason. Tactics seem cool because they are sexy. Strategy is slow. So come up with a strategy and then choose what tactics fit into that strategy, not the opposite way around.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Dude, I need to follow that. I'm in the middle of a mess because like all we're doing is releasing more and more garbage and we need a better strategy. So I am going to focus in on that. The last one from my side. Well, not the last one. Almost the last one is don't rely on industry averages. I hate when people are like, well I'm in this industry and I just googled the industry average for open rates and click through rates for emails. Is this or the industry average for, for social media or whatever? Is this in my industry? Who cares? Everybody's brand is different. Your offer is different, your creative is different, how people feel about your company is different. Everything is different. There's no such thing as an industry average and if you rely on that, you're chasing a ghost. All that matters is that you treat yourself like you're a swimmer or a weightlifter. You benchmark everything that you're doing. Your newsletter sends, your promotional email, sends, your social posts organically, your paid social posts, everything. The type of offers, when you're sending them, what you're doing, you benchmark yourself. And then every time you do it again, every time you hit send, you Try to beat yourself as if you are a swimmer. Ignore industry averages. They take you down the wrong path.

[Daniel Murray]

And it's also, tell your leaders to do that too, because a lot of people will come back to marketers and say, well, industry average is 2.3 on this landing page. But we're not the industry average. We have a different campaign, we have a different strategy. So I totally agree on that. I think you have the. The. The seventh sin. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Jay Schwedelson]

The seventh sin. Okay. The seventh sin is avoid Chipotle all day long and go to Poo Tropical instead. Because Poo Tropical under the radar. Way better than Chipotle. Are you in on that?

[Daniel Murray]

No. Poyo Tropical. Last time I ate Poo Tropical, I almost barfed. I think that's the worst. The wor. Worst place. But I did actually see. I saw a post of Coachella last week that they said, like, our lineup, and it was just like their bar of, like, how you pick all the Chipotle. I thought that was a genius thing because Coachella is, like, known to launch lineup. I know I just went on a tangent about Coachella and Chipotle.

[Jay Schwedelson]

But so. So what did you. So Pony Tropical, they have this good Mojo sauce, which is really good. Like, what is it that went wrong? I mean, it's chicken and they have like, rice and beans. It's so good.

[Daniel Murray]

First of all, I'm El Pollo Loco, and if you're from California, you know, you know Pollocho Picao. Every Pollo Chopacao I've seen on Google is rated under a 3.3 star. So I don't know what you're eating at Pueo Choco. That's good.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Well, now they're never going to sponsor this podcast. Way to go.

[Daniel Murray]

Way to go.

[Jay Schwedelson]

They were on the edge. They were about to jump in on this. They were so pumped. And now we lost them.

[Daniel Murray]

Wait. Last thing I want to end with is, could you tell everybody what you did for your birthday? I know we talked about your birthday last episode, but what did you do for your birthday?

[Jay Schwedelson]

So I did go see Black Bag, which was very good, although my wife thought it was mid at best. I ate a lot of popcorn, which was great. And then I sat home and then I went out for dinner. I had sushi, only me and her. I lied to everybody I knew. I said I was busy and I was asleep by 10 o'clock, and it was fantastic. Less is more. I don't want to go and do anything. How's that?

[Daniel Murray]

Well, you always. Yeah. And the last thing I'll have to say is for those who don't know, Jay is a Gator and the Gators won national championship. So we'll have to say go Gators. As we end this podcast.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah, Go Gators. For sure. And it made me stay up very late to watch the game, but I did it and we won. And Go Gators. And thank you. I appreciate you bringing that up. Very important. And thank you, everyone, for being here. Listen, go and follow the marking Millennials. This is a great podcast that he's got going on there. And do this, not that is. Eh, it's okay. We'll see you at the next one. Daniel, come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that, for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

[Daniel Murray]

Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Mark and Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.