Why “More Marketing” Isn’t the Answer. 

Let’s start with the line that usually makes people twitch.

If growth is inconsistent, doing more marketing is almost never the solution.

More activity without diagnosis just gets you to the wrong answer faster. Which is efficient, I suppose. Just not useful. And sure as shit not effective.

Most businesses don’t actually have a marketing problem. They have a clarity problem, wrapped in motion and paid for monthly.

The Trap Everyone Falls Into

The pattern is depressingly common.

Leads slow down. The pipeline gets lumpy. Revenue becomes unpredictable. And the response, almost without fail, is: we need more marketing.

What that usually means is more channels, more content, more spend and more noise, all before anyone has stopped to ask what’s actually broken.

That’s not strategy. That’s panic with a budget.

What Diagnosis Actually Means (And No, It’s Not a Workshop)

Diagnosis is not brainstorming. It’s not ideation. And it’s definitely not “let’s get the team in a room and see what comes out”.

Diagnosis is about understanding reality, not creating fake optimism.

At its core, proper marketing diagnosis looks at three things.

First, the customer. Who actually buys, why they buy, and what they compare you against when they do. Not who you want to buy. Who actually parts with cash.

Second, the category. How buying decisions really work in your market: the length of buying cycles, how risk is perceived, who makes the decision versus who blocks it, and what the real alternatives are, including doing nothing. You’ll be surprised how often just not addressing the issue is a genuine alternative to buying you. And categories behave differently. Pretending otherwise is how money gets pissed away.

Third, the company. Your real-world constraints, advantages and internal reality. Sales capability. Delivery limits. Pricing power. Credibility in-market. 

This is where strategy meets mature thinking.

Why This Isn’t “Old School” Thinking

This approach is completely aligned with the evidence-based school of marketing effectiveness, the one built on data, not vibes.

And the one I am a dedicated advocate of.

Different researchers come at it from different angles, but the conclusion is always the same. Effectiveness beats excitement every time.

Diagnosis is how you avoid treating marketing like my mum treats the Grand National.

The Most Common False Starts (All Expensive)

When diagnosis is skipped, the same mistakes show up again and again.

One is jumping straight to channels. “Should we be on LinkedIn more?” “What about podcasts?” “Everyone’s doing paid search.” 

Channels are delivery mechanisms, not solutions. Choosing them before clarity is like choosing the colour of a car before you know where you’re driving.

Another is copying competitors. If your strategy is “they seem to be doing this”, congratulations, you’ve outsourced thinking to someone who might also be wrong. Competitive awareness is essential. Competitive imitation is dumb as a brick.

The third is treating symptoms instead of causes. Low conversion gets answered with more leads. Low leads get answered with more spend. Low ROI gets answered with a new agency. Same disease. Different sticking plaster.

My Diagnostic Process (No Magic, Just Discipline)

What I do isn’t particularly clever. That’s the point.

I start by interrogating demand: where deals actually come from, what triggers buying, and why deals stall or die.

Then I pressure-test the ICP. Who’s profitable versus painful, who buys fastest, and who never bloody converts no matter how much effort you throw at them.

Next comes positioning. What buyers think you’re for, who they compare you with, and why they choose someone else.

Then I audit the funnel as a system. Not marketing versus sales, but one revenue engine, leaking or not.

Finally, I overlay metrics that matter: pipeline quality, conversion at key points, and revenue impact rather than activity counts.

Only then do we talk tactics. Anything else is guesswork dressed up as confidence.

How Diagnosis De-Risks Spend

This is the bit CFOs care about. Bloody right too.

Diagnosis reduces wasted experiments, also known as growth hacks, shortens time to impact, stops constant channel jumping, forces prioritisation and makes trade-offs totally clear.

You don’t need to test everything. You need to test the right things, for the right reasons. That’s how you get predictable revenue instead of quarterly surprises.

A Case In Point

Gemporia is a well-established online and TV jewellery retailer with excellent performance marketing, but falling revenues year on year.

As the first dedicated TV Jewellery retailer it was natural to assume that brand awareness was likely to be high and perhaps another part of the funnel needed fixing. But the research showed otherwise.

Share of brand search (i.e. potential customers looking for the brand not just the category) had been dropping for several years, and when we ran a brand tracking survey what had once been the market leader was only recognised by 18% of the target market.

Using proven methodology I built out a marketing plan to fight back with a budget tied to incremental revenue gains, making the case for investment with both a financial key result and quarterly key performance indicators to show the long term investment was heading in the right direction.

The Line Most Businesses Don’t Want To Hear

Diagnosis slows you down briefly. It speeds everything else up.

Skipping it feels productive. Until you look at the bank balance.

If you haven’t diagnosed the problem, every tactic is a guess.

And guessing with six-figure budgets isn’t bravery. It’s just badly managed optimism.