Ask anyone in the marketing industry (advertising, research, digital, etc.) and they will not deny the fact that many people, still, think marketing is “easy” and some have a very hard time understanding what the value of marketing is.
It might be because the internet is flooded with “how to in X easy steps” marketing topic articles. We’ve all seen those articles they offer vague 5 steps to create something marketing related. There are thousands of them out there, and they all deliver the same vague message. These articles don’t give you any specifics on how to ACTUALLY achieve your goals, following those “easy steps” will probably leave you where you started.
The reality is, marketing is not easy. For example, Content Strategy is a big topic nowadays. Everyone is talking about it and its importance, and you can find countless articles “create strong content in 5 easy steps”. No, No, No… creating content won’t take you 5 easy steps it will take you 652! (please refer to this useful article) and it’s not easy. Look, I know we are not doing brain surgery, nor sending people into space, but it does not mean marketing is easy or not valuable. It requires different kinds of skills and certain personality traits, but it’s not easy.
This is a real issue. Anyone who’s ever been assigned with asking for money for a marketing project, or if you’re like me, work for a marketing agency and are responsible for bringing new clients, explaining the value of marketing is not an easy task. People who don’t understand how difficult marketing can be assume the cost of those services should be relatively low… this is logical, many things that are easy have the perception of being cheap. Except that in reality if an organization wants to have a few marketing channels (for example, digital, print, and promotions) it will cost a few pennies. Please don’t misunderstand, there is a big difference between having a marketing channel and having strategically backed up marketing channel working towards achieving goals (but that’s a topic on it’s own). In short, marketing is not easy or cheap, if you take a shortcut, you might not not be able to reach your business goals.