After half a decade in this industry, I’ve noticed quite a lot about the way most people think about marketing. Expensive, unnecessary, and expensive.

It’s true, marketing can be expensive – but so can cars. You still need a car to get where you want to go, but you don’t have to choose between driving a Ferrari and riding the bus.

Marketing is no different – you need it. It gets you were you want to go. It doesn’t have to be expensive, it just has to work.

Which brings me to the answers to “Why marketers have a bad reputation”.

Most Marketers Suck.

It’s sad but it’s true. A lot of marketing options you’re presented with are just not good investments. In fact they aren’t investments at all – more like a black hole that eats your money and gives nothing back.

A lot of ‘marketers’ have the job of cold calling every name on their list to meet monthly quotas, pushing drive-thru service that will show in the end. (Much like drive-thrus.)

Marketing is supposed to make you money. If it’s not – then it isn’t working.

You don’t know what you’re doing.

A lot of people are taken in by these quick-buck schemes and/or try to take marketing into their own hands. Sometimes they do very well with it, sometimes not-so-much.

[Image of bad marketing]

Whether your marketing efforts work or not, they still take your time – which could probably be better spent doing your job. Let’s face it, at the end of the day marketing and design is still a job – and somebody has to grab the shovel.

Facts? Who needs them. Marketers and business owners alike are known to turn a blind-eye to facts from time to time. It’s human nature. In business, however, this can have devastating