Your marketing isn't failing on channels. It's failing on strategy and message.
Nobody decided who you're for, what you're actually selling them, or how to say it so it lands. I write up what I find, one company at a time, names filed off.
The agency's job is to look like the money well spent. They show up with a deck about reach, frequency, and channel mix. They leave you with a media plan and a retainer.
None of that is the hard part. The hard part is deciding who you're talking to, what they actually care about, and whether what you're selling them is the thing you said it was.
WHO READS THIS
The owner who suspects the agency is managing a relationship, not a problem
You've been running the same monthly report for eighteen months. The numbers aren't moving. When you ask why, the conversation turns to 'building brand.' You came here because that answer stopped working.
The VP handed a brief that came back as a media plan
Your owner wants leads. The agency wants impressions. Nobody in that room is going to say it plainly, so I will: a media plan is not a strategy. Here's what the difference costs.
WHERE ELSE I DO THIS OUT LOUD
Other people's shows
I show up as a guest when the host wants an argument instead of a plug. Open to more of it.
Rooms and stages
Trade associations, owner groups, sales kickoffs. Usually some version of why the strategy came last.
The short version
Most of what ends up here starts as an argument I picked over there.
I came up in manufacturing before I came up in marketing, which is why I'll ask about your gross margin before I ask about your Instagram.
More about me and the agency