Beware the Marketing Guru
At Keane, we’ve been in the marketing industry long enough to have seen a lot: trends that come and go, platforms that rise and fall, and more than a few self-proclaimed "marketing gurus". You know the sort, the person who walks into a room, drops all the latest buzzwords and walks out leaving a trail of nodding heads and scribbling hands. They’re often charismatic and speak with absolute confidence. They’re front-row at every event, feature on every panel, and throw around terms like “hyper-segmentation”, “funnel optimisation” or “growth hack”.
So it’s easy to assume that because they speak with certainty and seem to be everywhere that they must be right. However, what we’ve learned over our decades of experience with brands of all shapes and sizes is that visibility isn’t the same as expertise, and confidence isn’t strategy.
Is it confidence or competence?
Just because someone’s good at talking about marketing doesn’t mean they’re doing it well and just because someone’s talking loudly, doesn’t mean they’re saying the right thing. Many of these “gurus” have built a brand around being seen but not necessarily around delivering results. It’s a polished presence, yes, and whilst showing up at every seminar, workshop or conference might build someone’s visibility, it doesn’t make them a strategic genius. Yes, showing up everywhere is good marketing for themselves but it doesn’t automatically mean they’ve delivered sustained, real results for others, it just means they’ve nailed their personal branding.
What’s more concerning, however, is how confidently misinformation gets passed around. Whether it’s a one-size-fits-all approach to social media or sweeping generalisations about what “always works,” these messages can derail genuine, thoughtful strategies.
Marketing Is *Not* One-Size-Fits-All.
If there is only one message to take from this blog, it’s this: there’s no single “correct” way to do marketing! We’ve seen highly successful strategies that break every so-called 'rule' and we’ve seen seemingly perfect approaches fall completely flat. What works best will depend entirely on your audience, your resources, your industry, your goals and a whole host of other variables. That’s why we don’t offer silver bullets at Keane. We offer partnerships and a mindset of continuous test and measure. We develop strategies based on research and data and we provide creativity based on real insight – “creativity with intelligence” as we like to call it.
What Experience Has Taught Us
Having worked with startups, scale-ups, global brands and everything in between, here’s what we know matters more than the loudest voices spouting the latest buzzwords:
- Understanding your customers - what's important to them
- Building for the short, medium and long term - not just for the quick wins
- Adapting your approach based on data and results
- Asking the right questions before jumping into the tactics
- Knowing when to challenge the trend rather than blindly follow it.
Marketing is both an art and a science and no amount of charisma can replace experience or evidence so the next time you hear someone claiming that “this is how you do marketing”, take a second, because the best marketing isn’t loud, it’s about delivering value, building trust and learning what’s effective for you.
