Why your marketing fails – and always will if you employ these ill-informed bozos

 A quick short-cut to bankruptcy: what are marketing diplomas worth if they don’t remind people what the objective is?

33 years ago I started running the U.K.’s first ever residential course in direct marketing for the Chartered Institute of Marketing – the CIM – in Cookham.

Cookham is a picture-book village beside the Thames. There was a great Indian restaurant and a damn good pub just a walk away from  the CIM’s  splendid campus. I liked the people at the CIM, love teaching and enjoyed getting away from my office.

But after two years I jacked it in, because unfortunately the CIM was criminally unaware of the purpose of marketing – to sell places on the course. This is hard  if – as in their case – they did nothing that I could detect to promote the course save list it in their brochure.

I said they were relying on Marketing by Osmosis

Maybe they are better now, but I have never, ever in all the many interviews I have conducted asked any applicant if they had a marketing diploma.

A friend who interviews people for marketing jobs recently told me about a typical experience. The applicant, asked how a particular campaign had gone, said it got over 100,000 click-throughs.

What about conversions or sales? He had no idea.

I asked my friend, “Did he have a marketing diploma?”

“Yes”.

“Do most of the people you interview have them?”

“Yes”.

“Do any of them measure sales?”

“No”.

If those who run these damn courses don’t remind people every day what the purpose of marketing is they are not worth a damn.

Hire people who have had to get results. That’s all that matters.