Most marketing fails today because consumers and businesses are exposed to too much noise. The average American sees or hears more than 3,000 advertisements every day. They get frustrated and the last thing they want to do is listen to a company yell about how great it is. Consumers have decided to take their attention back because they are tired of getting distracted by meaningless fluff.

It used to be that advertisers had the power because they were the source of information for the consumer. This is no longer true. Now, consumers have access to all the information in the world at their fingertips, giving them the power. They no longer have to listen to advertising to get the information they want. They can find it for themselves. The days of pounding your message into the consumer until they listen are over. So how do you break through the noise and get your ads out there? You must make them WANT your information.

The Four Biggest Problems in Marketing

1. Companies do not have or cannot articulate a clear, unique value to their potential customer.
It seems like everyone in the marketing world is fascinated with yelling. What is the latest way to yell? How can you yell more often, louder or more creatively? There is one giant problem, regardless of how creatively you yell: If you have nothing to say, people won’t listen or take action. Having a specific, compelling, and unique value is the “something” to say. Unfortunately, most businesses either don’t have a clear differentiator, or they don’t make it clear to their prospect.

Marketing is governed by a simple concept of human nature. All customers want to make the best decision possible given their situation. This means if they believe a decision is important, they want to gather credible information so they can make a wise decision.

It is the responsibility of the marketer to clearly show prospects what matters in their industry and how they provide more value in a relevant way.

2. Most businesses have holes in their marketing systems.
A car won’t work very well if you have a great engine, but no transmission. The same is true of a marketing system. Marketing components have to work together to get maximum response leverage. For example, if a business generates leads but doesn’t follow up, it will not close very many customers. An underdeveloped or incomplete system leads to wasted effort and costs money.

This is so common because businesses don’t often start with a grand plan that works from the beginning. They are built on trial and error or by copying others in their industry. This leads to gaps in the system. Another reason marketing systems are incomplete is that businesses have never been taught what a good system should look like.

3. Many companies don’t track their marketing.
It is hard to effectively track marketing, but what you don’t track, you can’t improve. Often, businesses don’t know how or what to track. They are also busy and don’t want to take the time required to track.

Two examples that information companies should always track are: the lifetime value of the customer and the average marketing cost per sale. Most companies make up a marketing budget out of thin air or as a percentage of revenue. If they track the lifetime value and average marketing cost per sale, then they can have a clear understanding of how much they need to spend.

4. Ads are filled with meaningless fluff, not copy designed to get a response.
Just showing up is no longer enough! An ad that says, “Hey, we exist!” or worse, “Hey, we exist and we’re great because we have customer service!” will not cut it. Copy must interrupt, pull the prospect in, make a point and give a compelling offer. If it misses any of those components, it won't work.

Content needs to be specific enough to be meaningful if it is to have any power of persuasion in a world of constant noise.