Editorial
The Gist
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Strategy over activity. High-output marketing often hides a lack of strategic clarity. Ruthless prioritization is what drives real results.
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Listen before planning. Effective marketing starts with listening to sales, product and support teams to understand where the real friction lies.
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Boundaries drive focus. Saying no and cutting underperforming work is not a bottleneck. It's what supports focus, speed and actual impact.
Marketing plans don’t usually fail because the team is bad or the budget is thin. They fail because they’re trying to impress, not win.
Flashy decks. Dozens of initiatives. A roadmap so bloated it collapses the minute real business pressure hits. And in the middle of all that noise, no one’s asking the most important question. What are we really trying to achieve?
Over the years, I’ve reviewed a big number of marketing strategies across tech startups, and it’s clear why most fail. It’s estimated that 90% of startups fail within five years, and among them, 14% cite ineffective marketing strategies as a key reason. This isn’t a very big percentage, though, so yay to us, marketers. There usually is a bigger problem, and the research shows that 42% of startups fail because their products are not solving a real market problem.
This problem, though, is also the marketing leader’s problem when they join a startup without a clear product-market fit yet. And in such a case, it’s really important to be even more strategic and dedicate your time to testing the right things, not running a frenzy of activity.
I worked both in startups searching for their product-market fit and successful scaleups that built something people already love (hello to Y Combinator alumni readers here). Here’s what I’ve learned. Real strategy is ruthless. It’s about what you cut as much as what you keep.
Further, I want to talk about the approach I use to build marketing strategies that are lean, grounded in reality and built to last, even in messy, uncertain or fast-moving environments.
Table of Contents
- Why Activity Isn’t the Same as Strategy
- How Boundaries Create Better Marketing Outcomes
- Why Listening Is the First Step in Any Marketing Strategy
- Scaling Smart: Don’t Grow What Doesn’t Work
- The Power of Saying No in Strategic Marketing
- Core Questions About Marketing Strategy
Why Activity Isn’t the Same as Strategy
A few times, I’ve joined marketing teams and saw the same thing. They had many landing pages, a webinar series and a bunch of contractors pushing different marketing channels. They had a team of three to five people, everyone super busy. And yet, behind the scenes, they had a growth plateau or zero revenue, or sales was waiting for quality leads they could turn into SQLs.
Here’s the question no one wants to ask: What is all this work actually doing?
The confusion between activity and strategy isn’t just common; it’s baked into the culture of many startups. Founders want momentum, and teams want to prove value. And so, marketing gets loud. But volume isn’t impact. To put it simply, this is when activity lacks strategy.
The Cost of Misaligned Marketing Efforts
In fact, marketers waste roughly 37% of their investment on misaligned efforts and inefficient media mixes. I’ve seen teams stretch themselves across five channels when two or even one would do. I’ve seen marketing roadmaps so overloaded they look impressive, until you realize there’s no clear line between any of the work and the business goals.
For me, strategy is a tool of reduction. In high-velocity environments, saying yes to everything is the fastest route to burnout and mediocrity. The hardest and most strategic decisions I’ve made were about what not to pursue. When everything’s a priority, nothing actually ships.
Related Article: CMOs Are No Longer Just Marketers
How Boundaries Create Better Marketing Outcomes
One of the most underrated skills in marketing leadership is drawing the line clearly, confidently and early. I learned the hard way that boundaries aren’t bottlenecks. They’re the scaffolding that holds good strategy in place.
The Pareto principle is the reality for marketers. Approximately 80% of outcomes come from just 20% of causes. I audit channels, assets and relationships constantly. If they don’t pull their weight, I cut or rework them. This isn’t about being inflexible; it’s about being intentional.
Using the 80/20 Rule to Audit Marketing Channels
And when you build a marketing function that respects its own limits, you create room for real focus and, ironically, much more freedom.
Why Listening Is the First Step in Any Marketing Strategy
Whenever I step into a new role, I don’t rush to make noise. I listen first.
That might sound counterintuitive in a world that celebrates fast wins and bold moves. But marketing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s downstream from product, from sales and from customer experience. So, I start by mapping the system and listening to the people closest to the front lines.
My first few weeks are spent in conversations with sales leaders, country managers and customer support teams. Not just the execs, the people actually in the field. They’ll tell you what the CRM data can’t tell you and what the C-level doesn't like to hear. They’ll tell you what’s landing, what’s not and where the friction lives.
What Frontline Conversations Reveal That Data Doesn’t
In parallel, I turn to the data. I want to see what’s been tried, what’s been measured and what’s been quietly swept under the rug. I don’t come in with a perfect playbook; I build one around the business as it exists, not as it was pitched. During the interviews, I feel it’s a red flag if a company wants you to tell them what they should do and wants you to build an entire marketing strategy for them without ever seeing a single data set. Yes, often companies wanna see how you think. But the real assumption can only be made when data is in your hands.
Once I understand the terrain, I start small. I map out a three to four month plan focused on low-hanging fruit. These are the quick, visible wins that build trust and free up room for deeper strategy. I often bring in a tool like Asana, not because they’re trendy, but because giving projects a structure helps me breathe.
It’s only after those first wins land that I can start scaling the system. That includes figuring out which levers can handle more weight, which channels have untapped potential and where experimentation actually makes sense. It’s not glamorous, and it’s not what most CEOs want to hear. But it is how one makes it work.
Related Article: The Art of Balancing Data and Creativity: Building Brands That Connect
Scaling Smart: Don’t Grow What Doesn’t Work
Once the short-term wins are in place, the real work begins of turning momentum into muscle.
This is where I see many teams trip up. They either rush to scale too fast and build on shaky foundations, or they fall into the comfort of routine and stop iterating. But sustainable marketing sits somewhere in between. It’s patient, experimental and always watching the feedback loop.
It’s best to treat every campaign like a hypothesis. Not every test will succeed; that’s not the point. What matters is whether it takes you one step closer to finding a scalable way to grow.
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When to Scale, Pause or Cut
This table summarizes how to assess marketing initiatives before scaling.
| Scenario | Recommended Action | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Consistent performance over time | Scale | Shows predictable ROI and proven audience engagement |
| Inconsistent results but high potential | Pause and Re-test | May require channel refinement or creative adjustment |
| Low ROI despite multiple tests | Cut | Resources better used elsewhere; sunk cost fallacy risk |
| High resource drain, low strategic value | Cut | Even with some traction, it's not aligned with goals |
| New idea with strong early indicators | Test and Monitor | Could be a future growth lever if early signs continue |
Finding Repeatable Success Before Scaling
There’s a moment, after a few cycles of building and learning, when you start to see the shape of something bigger. Patterns emerge, and you see a channel that consistently performs. That’s your signal to invest and scale.
But scaling doesn’t mean hiring more people or contractors and simply doing more. It means acting smarter. I look for automation tools to translate current experience into other marketing channels.
Related Article: Aligning AI Agents With Marketing Automation Technology
The Power of Saying No in Strategic Marketing
One of the first things I teach any marketing team is that their time is also a part of the marketing budget.
We talk a lot about prioritization, but most marketers aren’t actually taught how to say no. They’re taught to deliver, to be helpful to other teams and to make things look good, often very last minute. But if everything’s a yes, your marketing team becomes a service desk. I make sure to teach my team that, first and foremost, they are here to build marketing outcomes, not to serve others.
As a marketing leader, I anchor my team’s roadmap to commercial goals, not vanity KPIs. My team’s goals ladder up to mine. Mine ladder up to revenue. If an initiative doesn’t fit that chain, it’s a distraction.
Setting Boundaries for Sustainable Team Focus
Sometimes, that means walking away from underperforming partners. Sometimes, it means killing your own idea when it no longer serves the marketing strategy. And sometimes, it’s telling your colleague from another department that you can help with their problem in a few weeks, not tomorrow.
The moment you stop trying to keep everyone happy, your marketing starts to work. Because the point isn’t to please; it’s to deliver.
Core Questions About Marketing Strategy
Editor's note: Key questions surrounding the development and execution of modern marketing strategies — especially in fast-moving, resource-constrained environments.
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