Marketing Hype Kills Small Businesses

Despite the fact that no one knows how a marketing campaign will perform before it begins, we all have expectations. Expectations are derived from the hype we hear, see or read, the ambiguous, pie-in-the-sky scenarios marketing firms sell, and our own hopes. When things don’t go as we envisioned, there is a tendency to view the effort as a failure. The failure began long before you started seeing initial results. A properly conceived marketing project will ensure that all stakeholders have a realistic view of how projects evolve. The expectation that when a campaign is launched, it will either succeed or fail is ludicrous. Even if the campaign feels like a mega-hit, perhaps it could be better. Learning, adjusting, and continuous improvement is an innate part of the process, not an afterthought.