When I meet with CEOs in my role as a fractional CMO, it’s usually at a time when their company’s growth, revenues, or market share – or some combination of the three – have flattened. Often, these CEOs are finding that their current marketing efforts aren’t delivering the results they expect. And in most cases, their companies are in “scale-up” mode with substantial emphasis on sales and operational excellence.

An unintended consequence of this critical stage in a business’s maturation process is that marketing is often relegated to a meandering series of one-off tactics such as glossy sales sheets, the occasional trade show, search engine optimization, and a basic website with the intent of meeting in-the-moment needs.

We call these types of tactics “random acts of marketing,” and while company leaders mean well in creating them, the reality is they cost money, don’t get results, and divert attention of the marketing staff from higher-value activities. Worse yet, they consume precious resources that could fund and execute a strategy to support growth and build value.

To address these issues, when working with the CEO and leadership team (or marketing team if there is one), we do three things:

1. Identify random acts of marketing,
2. Replace them with a fact-based, strategy-driven approach that yields measurable results and can ignite growth, and
3. Do fewer things, better.

Let’s start by understanding how to identify these random acts.

Identifying Random Acts of Marketing

Random acts of marketing come in many forms. For example, if you’re setting a time-bound quota for blogs or social media posts, you are marketing with no purpose. I once encountered a company that had committed to issuing two press releases per month but had no idea why. Haphazard, output-oriented goals such as these – without a clearly defined gauge to measure its business impact – will not only allow you to lose credibility with prospects, current customers, and influencers, but they will cause you to focus on the pursuit of a meaningless goal instead of one that can charge your ecosystem with value.

Ask yourself why you’re doing something, and if the answer doesn’t include a measure of its business impact, you’ve probably identified a “random act of marketing.”

The Risks

As Adweek explains, not only does poor inbound content deter business, it can negatively impact your search engine optimization (SEO). Google and other platforms now take social signals into account when evaluating your website page rankings.

If the quality of your posts is poor, prospects will be less likely to find you. And if your content does not convey a cohesive narrative, prospects will be less likely to view your company as credible or understand the value you can deliver – compelling your audience to seek out a competitor that is engaging in a more impactful dialogue.

Steps to Eliminate Random Marketing Efforts

To eliminate random acts of marketing and move your enterprise toward a focused approach that informs your work and yields better results that you can review and measure, you can follow these five steps: