What Is This Marketing Shitshow (Or Is It Shit Show?)

If you've been a marketer for longer than 20 minutes, you've likely wondered "What is this shit show?" and "What's your fucking point?" several times a day.

I have done a lot of professional marketing shit over 20+ years. Agency and client side. B2C and B2B. Loyalty and acquisition. Digital and offline. I've spent a lot of time as the "marketing strategy person" and I've also been the "button pusher". (Note: I really love being the button pusher. It's exhilarating.)

I'm just sharing this boring stuff to convey that I am what one might consider "seasoned." And while I love marketing and the brilliant people with whom I've worked (both marketers and muggles), I have some bones to pick. Have a Fucking Point (HFP) is a passion project to dive into marketing shit show experiences that start or end with the thought, "What's your fucking point?" Sometimes it's a silent thought and other times it escapes.

I cannot begin to count the times work colleagues have brought "cool" marketing solutions / ideas to me without first considering 1) the customer or 2) what they are actually trying to accomplish.

If you're just tossing out an idea, great. Good ideas really do come from anywhere and marketing is fun! There's a never-ending list of things to try and a million ways to potentially engage and inform customers. The problem lies when a business, especially when those in charge of running the organization, begin pushing and demanding marketing tactics haphazardly.

Maybe it's not a big deal to do "one little marketing thing" simply because it looks cool. But every effort requires energy and resources. And when those running the business stop viewing all decisions and efforts through the customer lens and the role that your brand plays in your customer's life, shit hits the fan.

Priorities become unclear. Half-baked projects die on a vine. Materials become outdated. Internal teams start fighting. The time and energy invested do not lead to business success. People get burnt out.

So, to avoid the marketing shit show altogether, let's just make sure that we "Have a Fucking Point" by knowing the answers to the following questions:

• Who are our customers?

• What problem am I solving or solution am I providing THEM?

• What do THEY need from our brand?

• What will they ACCEPT from our brand?

• How does the specific idea or tactic I'm proposing relate to all of the above?

Then, if you still feel great about that amazing gem of an idea, go ahead and toss it right on over.

P.S. Need a pretty little project planner to help you track all of these amazing ideas and get shit done? Check out these project planner notebooks.