Here are five very common adtech marketing mistakes. 

(Also, check out this week’s episode of Open Market with Eric Franchi. We cover how to grow adtech companies from $1M to $10M. Hint: marketing is a big part of the episode!)

You don’t have a theory of victory

There are four ways to win with adtech marketing:

1. Own a topic or category (e.g. Scope3 with sustainability)

2. Share novel data or data-driven insights (Adalytics)

3. Lead the discourse with smart analysis (Ari Paparo, Eric Seufert)

4. Be present, prolific, and personable (Matt Barash)

Of course, these aren’t mutually exclusive. 

You should know which routes you’re pursuing, and you should be able to explain how you’re executing against them. Otherwise, you may be falling prey to the common error of ‘just doing marketing’ without a clear understanding of how your tactics ladder up to a strategy to differentiate you from competitors and galvanize your customers.

You’re not making yourself visible daily

Most companies are not present enough in the industry conversation. Other adtech people don’t think enough about them, nor do journalists or their customers (usually publishers, brands, or agencies). 

The usual reason is the company isn’t taking advantage of direct communications channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack). 

Traditional PR is great, but reporters will only cover you so often. White papers and webinars drive deep engagement but only with a select audience — and infrequently. Blog posts are usually more effective as sales enablement assets because unless you’re Eric Seufert, you’re likely not drawing a huge regular audience to your blog.

So, make sure you have a plan to get in front of your customers and those who influence them on a daily basis. Typically, social content is the best way to meet that bar. LinkedIn and Twitter are both home to lively advertising conversations.

Your team isn’t united on a story

Everyone on the marketing team (plus executives) should be able to answer three questions:

1. What do we do and for whom?

2. How are we different from the alternatives?

3. Why does it matter?

Furthermore, they should understand where the company is today (how customers and others in the industry perceive it), where the company wants to go, and how the company story bridges the gap while answering the three questions above.

Uniting the company behind a single story will ensure that whenever you get in front of customers, you share the message that matters, and marketing sets up sales to close a pitch that the company understands from the CEO on down.

If you’re not united on a story, you can reach as many people as you like, but that reach will be far less effective at winning stakeholders to your cause.

Your customers aren’t driving the story

For a marketing story to be successful, customers need to be in the driver’s seat. This can mean one of two things (or both):

1. Customers are literally driving the story insofar as they, your champions, are amplifying it to the press, on social, in content such as case studies, and elsewhere. Ideally, you have a few champions who are eager to go to bat for you and are passionate about the direction of the company (because that direction directly serves them). These are the people who will substantiate your story to the press and evangelize their peers (such as fellow brand, agency, and publisher professionals).

2. Customers are the engine of the story. Too often, we prescribe to our customers where we think they should go. What we really need to do is figure out what their problems are and design solutions and stories that solve those problems. It seems obvious, but it’s easy to chase market opportunities that aren’t aligned with where our customers want to go. It’s our job to chase those opportunities only when our customers are enthusiastically along for the ride — or to convince them to come along for the ride (much harder).

If you’re doing a strategic marketing review, ask yourself whether your customers are really onboard, and if they’re not, investigate whether you need to tweak the story so that it’s one with which they can align. It will take at least a few existing customer champions to evangelize everyone else.

Your operations don’t match the mission

Let’s say you’ve solved the three core questions of marketing strategy:

1. What’s the business problem?

2. What’s the story?

3. Where and how will we distribute the story to win?

You can still fall short if you don’t have the team in place to amplify the story. Marketing is only successful if you’re actually building your reputation and relationships. You can’t do that if you’re not connecting with customers and those who influence them.

To simplify, the ideal marketing team would have the following bases covered:

1. PR (media relations and thought leadership bylines)

2. Social

3. Owned / sales enablement content (white papers, case studies, webinars, blog posts)

4. Events (owned events, sponsorships, talks)

5. Paid advertising / ABM

If you have a team of five or more, start by dividing them across these tasks and ideally hiring a manager to mind the execution of the strategy. If you have fewer marketers, prioritize channels based on where you are most likely to reach and persuade your customers, and build from there.

Be honest with yourself and your team about what you can accomplish. A clear and practical plan is more effective than an impractical bid to do everything when finances do not allow.

In short: 5 steps to win with marketing

Take these five steps:

1. Clarify your theory of victory.

2. Increase your visibility by going direct.

3. Unite the team on a story.

4. Ensure your customers are onboard.

5. Align operations with an achievable strategic plan.

Go get ’em, tigers.