Why your marketing is not working

When somebody tells us their marketing is not working, they usually mean the ads. They want the ads looked at. Nine times out of ten the ads are the only part doing its job, and the problem is somewhere further down where nobody is watching.

Here is where it actually dies, roughly in order of how often we find it.

1. The lead arrives and nobody calls back

This is the big one. Enquiries land in an inbox, or a phone that was in a van, or a form that emails somebody who is on a job. By the time anyone reads it the buyer has already spoken to two other companies.

Speed is not a nice to have here. It is most of the result. If you fix nothing else this year, fix the gap between an enquiry arriving and a human responding.

2. There is no follow-up after the first attempt

Somebody rings once, gets voicemail, and the lead is quietly written off. Meanwhile the same person would have answered on Thursday. Most businesses are sitting on months of enquiries that were never actually declined, just never chased.

3. The offer is vague

If your answer to what you do is a list of services, the buyer has to do the work of deciding whether you are right for them. Most will not bother. A sharp offer says who it is for, what it changes and why now, and it does the qualifying before anyone picks up the phone.

4. The brand undersells the business

The moment before somebody meets you, they meet your brand. If it looks like a company half your size, you get asked for jobs half the size you want. This is the one owners resist most, because it feels cosmetic. It is not cosmetic. It sets the price band you get invited into.

5. Nobody can tell what worked

Without tracking, every decision becomes a debate about opinions. Spend gets moved on a hunch, the good channel gets cut because it feels quiet, and the bad one survives because somebody likes it. Wire up measurement and half the arguments in the business disappear.

How to find yours in an afternoon

1. 01Take the last thirty enquiries. Write down the minutes between arrival and first human contact.
2. 02Count how many were contacted more than twice.
3. 03Ask three customers, in their words, why they picked you.
4. 04Open your own website on a phone and try to enquire.
5. 05Ask your team which marketing brought last month's best job. See if two people agree.

Whichever of those makes you wince is your constraint. Fix that before you touch the ad account.

More traffic into a leaking system just makes the leak more expensive.