Here are five bad words that, in my opinion, have no place in marketing:

1. SPEND. My lips curl with distaste when I hear people refer to “spending” money on marketing. If you’re spending money to market your company, you might as well just kiss it goodbye. (Or better yet, give it to a worthy non-profit!) You should be INVESTING money in your marketing, and thus expecting a RETURN on that investment. If you’re not, you’re doing it wrong.

One of the things I find most irresponsible amongst my competitors is lack of research. When DesignWorks NY submits a proposal to a prospect, our approach always includes a research based “Discovery” component that varies in scale depending on the budget. My findings indicate many of my competitors don’t do this — they have a 1-hour meeting and from that, provide a course of action?! How can that be? What is their plan based on?

Marketers use the words “customer engagement” often these days, but I get the feeling that many folks really don’t grasp that concept. And yes, sadly, even marketing folks. Quite simply, customer engagement refers to the engagement of customers with one another, with a company or with a brand.

Today is 12-12-12, the last major numerical date for almost another century.  The next time three numbers will align like this will be on Jan. 1, 2101, or 1-1-1. Today is also nine days before the Mayan calendar's doomsday date of 12-21-12, which is slated be the so-called “end of the world.” Did the Mayans have dyslexia and mean the end to be today, on 12-12-12?

A while ago we lost an RFP (request for proposal) to a competitor — an agency where I know the owners and respect their work. We lost the bid because the requesting company decided to (and I quote) “move forward with an agency with PR/Graphic Design/Content/Social Media capabilities all together in house.”

Today I got a little testy with a person who honestly didn’t know the difference between a Graphic Artist and Graphic Designer. I apologized after the fact, explaining that I had experienced more than my share of having to play “clean up” when you hire the wrong one, in the past two weeks. In a nutshell, here’s the difference:

The most common marketing mistake I see is a flurry of marketing activities (usually good) but with no strategy (very bad). And these days, I see if more often than not with people diving into social media. Ever try to take a road trip with no map? Sure, it’s adventurous to drive aimlessly and can even be exciting to see where you will end up! But that’s a gamble you should probably not take when running your business.

What can a marketing strategy do for you and your business?

It’ll help you…

I don’t often blog about specific products, but I get asked a lot what I prefer, so I thought I would share a bit – what’s the big secret? I think it was Barney who said, “sharing means caring!”

It’s award season, the time of year when my industry comrades — individuals and firms — get recognized for their creative work during the past year. Some of my colleagues shun entering award competitions, but I applaud them; it’s a way to get confirmation and validation of good work that doesn’t always get acknowledged by clients. Perhaps they figure we get paid and that should be enough? That’s a whole ‘nother post.

Many business owners struggle with hiring an outside agency to do their marketing, especially in this economy where the mindset often is "I could do this myself if only I had the time."  But here's a very important distinction that might help in the decision to outsource: You don’t hire a marketing agency because you don’t have the time to market effectively; you hire a marketing agency because you want their experience and expertise.