Build #67 - Marketing doesn’t need a bigger budget. It needs a brain.

Let’s get something straight.

Most businesses aren’t failing because they don’t have enough marketing budget.

They’re failing because they don’t have a clue what they’re doing.

Every week, I watch founders launch into “marketing mode” with no strategy, no insights, and no clear positioning. Just a blind faith in tactics. Hire a junior marketer. Run some ads. Launch a newsletter. Launch a podcast…sponsor an event and hope for the best.

It’s not marketing. It’s noise. Expensive noise.

Let’s be honest: most businesses fail at marketing because they lack strategy.

Strategy eats tactics for breakfast

I recently stepped in as a Fractional CMO for a fast-scaling B2B Tech business. They’d been throwing everything at growth- ads, automation, content, events. The works. But leads?

Flatlining.

Within four weeks, using a clear positioning strategy, solid segmentation, and insight-led messaging, we generated 17 qualified inbound leads off the back of one campaign. More leads in one month, than the whole of 2024.

No budget increase. No new team.

Just a brain.

The problem: founders love tactics

Tactics feel good. They look busy. You can point to them and say, “Look! We’re doing marketing!”

But unless they’re rooted in a strategy based on real insight, it’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something will stick.

If you don’t know who you’re targeting, what pain you solve, or what makes your customers choose you, no tactic will save you. You’re just creating mess and burning cash.

Step one: positioning

You want growth? Start by positioning yourself properly.

It’s the cornerstone of any decent marketing strategy. And yet so many businesses get it wrong.

They obsess over the competition. They copy the category norms.

And worst of all? They forget the customer.

Strong positioning is brutal. It forces you to choose. You’re not here to appeal to the masses, you’re here to be the obvious choice for your ideal customer.

If you can’t summarise your offer in one sentence that hits a nerve, you’re not ready to go to market.

To help you on your positioning journey I’ve created a really simple free positioning tool kit.

Step two: talk to your customers

If you haven’t had a real conversation with your customers in the last three months, you’re marketing blind.

Smart marketing starts with listening. Not just to what people say but what they mean. What they feel.

I always start a marketing audit by listening to actual customers. Not assumptions. Not internal opinions. The real voices of the people who buy (or don’t).

The result? Often a sea change in how the business sees itself. Because it doesn’t just expose blindspots, it reframes the brand through the eyes that matter most, customers.

Once you find that sweet spot, you’ve got your message. You don’t need more blog posts. You need to reinforce your messaging time and time again (see step four).

Step three: targeting

Most companies fail because they try to say too much to too many people.

Tight targeting beats broad reach. Every time.

That means proper segmentation, not just job titles, but differences in pain points, need state and urgency.

For example In B2B SaaS, ‘HR Manager’ isn’t a segment. A 50-person startup hiring their first global employee is a world away from a 50,000 global-person business. Same title. Very different problems.

Segment. Speak their language. Make them think, “this was written just for me.”

That’s how you get attention. Not with a bigger budget but with sharper relevance.

Step four: Be consistent. Even when you’re bored of it.

You might be tired of your own tagline, logo and colours (in fact you should be if you’re using them correctly). Your audience isn’t.

Repetition builds memory. Memory builds brands. If you keep changing your message, your colours, your tone, you’re not evolving, you're erasing everything you’ve built.

Stick to your codes. Build salience. Stay top of mind. That’s how you grow.

And no, consistency is not the enemy of creativity- it's how smart brands build compound brand equity.

Step five: Track what actually matters

You need a simple marketing scorecard to track metrics that matter.

Here’s what actually matters:

• Are the right people aware of your brand?
• Is your message cutting through?
• Are you growing a pipeline with ideal-fit leads?

In my 17-MQL example, we tracked Marketing Qualified Leads and click through rates - enabling agile targeting to improve results. But the real win isn't the uptick in leads, it’s the change in morale.

The marketing team is no longer asleep at the wheel. They have a realtime dashboard and solid recipe to guide them to cook spaghetti that sticks every time!

Pick a few metrics that actually link to growth and track them ruthlessly.

Big brands waste money too

Here’s the irony, even the big budget players screw this up.

They chase trends. They rebrand without reason. They blow six figures on filmic storytelling that doesn’t land because no one knows what they actually do (Jaguar, I’m looking at you).

If they’d spent a fraction of that on insight, on positioning, on getting their strategy nailed?

They’d need half the budget to get twice the results.

So imagine what a scaling business could do with a bit of clarity and a lot of focus.

The bottom line

You don’t need to outspend the competition. You need to outthink them.

That means:

• Getting clear on who you are and who you’re for
• Listening harder to your customers than your competitors do
• Being consistent, distinct, and relevant
• Measuring what matters

Most importantly, it means starting with strategy, not tactics.

Because marketing doesn’t need a bigger budget.

It needs a brain.

And if that fails? You can always call me.