Most businesses see marketing as an expense, not as an essential part of the business.

That's why budgets were cut during COVID-19.

To change that problem we need to solve marketing's biggest problem.

Marketing‘s biggest problem is that most of it doesn’t get noticed and doesn’t get on the consumer’s radar.

And the reason why we don't get noticed by consumers is most marketing looks the same.

The marketing becomes camouflage.

It’s dull, it's boring and everyone is doing the same thing. Sometimes the same thing but better.

And that’s why 91% of content earns no Google traffic.

That’s why we scroll passed the ads on Facebook and Instagram.

That's why we click the skip ad button on Youtube as soon as we can.

That's why 25% of all internet users have adblocker.

That’s why we fast forward TV ads.

And fundamentally that's why budgets were cut during COVID-19

We need to understand customers, everyday people.

It shows that customers aren’t bothered about marketing that’s why they block it out of their lives.

They also block it out because it all looks the same. Most of it isn’t different. It’s like wallpaper.

We work in a bubble and don't see the bigger picture. 

We talk about marketing until we're blue in the face.

And then we launch it hardly anyone sees it.

The problem is getting impact. We need to create stuff that gets noticed.

Currently it fits in and that’s the problem.

It needs to stand out and make a noise.

It needs to be different and that requires bravery in marketing.

We need to stop the conventional work and start by thinking bolder and braver. 

Taking more risks and being exciting. We shouldn’t follow other brands on what they are doing, we should create our own stand out work.

So the solution is being more brave and willing.

Not just putting it on Facebook or on a billboard.

We need to get people to react to the marketing we are doing.

And if we can get more reaction and impact the marketing will be working better.

Meaning it will be more valuable and become less of an expense and more of an essential. 

John Cutts works for Adtrak, a digital marketing agency in Nottingham. John’s role focuses on strategy and has many years of both agency and in-house marketing experience, specialising in strategy for both SEO and Content Marketing.