Why Your Marketer Can’t Give You a Guarantee!

A prospective customer asked if I could guarantee sales if they hired me for marketing services. I said no and did not hear from them again. It was disappointing but understandable. People new to marketing think marketing is a simple transaction with $x for y results but it is more complex.

Honestly, I cannot think why any professional would guarantee sales for a marketing or promotions project. We can be the best at what we do but we cannot provide guarantees. The only ones who offer such promises are rookies and outright shysters. Here’s why:

Your competitors will always Try to lead the market.

You can invest hundreds into Google ads or social media ads to grow your revenue but still fail if your competitors spend more on their PPC campaign.

Competitors can also reverse analyse your tactics and devise a strategy similar or better than yours. It’s normal and it is out of your control. Your marketer can only guarantee the quality of their work on your project. They cannot predict or stop your competitors from investing or doing more to beat you.

Your business is unique.

Most guarantee requests come from companies that want to do exactly what others are doing. This is a bad idea unless your companies are closely matched.

Even then, it is a moot point as your company cannot guarantee identical skills, manpower, budget, capabilities and product response.

In any case why be them when you can be you? Is it not best to focus on your business goals and abilities and lead in your own league?

Far better to focus on what you can do better and how you can you do it with the unique flair that will attract people to you.

Closing the sale is out of the marketer’s control.

A person who is closer to the end of the funnel will always be easier to convert than a cold lead browsing the aisles of your offers.

Rejoice Nyatsanza

A marketer can stand by the street and sing till the cows home but the market is not governed by internal tactics. Each day we are exposed to as many as 5000 ads as per estimates by marketing firm Yankelovich.

Now think about the dozens of people who see your content. They each have their own motives for buying your products and services or choosing not to.

Every now and then you will market to someone who is solution aware and ready to be sold to. Or you will market to someone unaware and will not buy no matter how competitive the price and sales copy.

That said marketing helps visitors move along from being a mere window shopper to a warm lead. There is no guarantee they will buy but good marketers can often craft the right messaging that will help them move closer to the sale than before.

A sale cannot happen unless your closing technique is good.

Marketing does a lot of work. It crafts the messaging, designs the brand and helps advertise the product. Yet it cannot make the transaction. That is handled by your automated sales program or by a sales team.

A rude or pushy salesperson will often have a terrible sales average while a good salesperson will close more deals than the next person.

Therefore, a marketer cannot guarantee a set amount of revenues as your conversion team can lose a prospect at the time of sale. All a marketer can do is bring marketing qualified and warm leads to you. What you do to close the transaction is up to you and your sales team.

A bad product will Ruin Marketing Guarantees.

One of the toughest jobs for marketers is promoting a product that does not have any good points. You need to make sure that your product is up to standards and does what it says it will do.

There is a reason why snakes oil salesmen get a bad rap these days: their cure-all products were awful and had undesirable side effects.

So invest in making sure your product or service is what you say it is. If it is the cure for laziness, we should see the transformative results of the product.

People are not foolish and they will request refunds, leave bad reviews and make you rue the day you launched a shoddy product. This is also why influencer marketing is on the rise: consumers got tired of hearing marketers advertise substandard products.

Now marketers and advertisers have to be cleverer as people tend to be deaf to advertisements that do not speak to their needs. Of course, a marketer may do their best to market a substandard product and get wins. Unfortunately, such superficial success will not last. A guarantee is thus out of the question in such instances.

When can a marketer offer a guarantee?

When the results are within their control. A guarantee is a promise that outcome B will occur when input A is provided. If Outcome B is dependent on the alignment or external forces X, Y and Z it cannot be guaranteed as a marketer cannot control them.

To illustrate, a Pinterest marketer can guarantee they will design 70 pins within 1 week. They are in charge of both the production and the scheduling for the development of the pins. They also have the experience to know that that is how long such a project will take.

Yet, they cannot guarantee a conversion rate of 100% as they do not control who will see the pins. Pinterest has all sorts of visitors scrolling by. Viewers may be bookmarking ideas for a bedroom renovation they will do next year. Or they may be actively bookmarking for a renovation next week.

How they behave is a result of their stage in the marketing funnel and how competitive the ideas and prices are.

Other factors will influence their behaviour as well. Cost of shipping, availability of preferences such as colours, sizes and tax amounts can also affect how well the audience converts into paying customers. All this makes it difficult to offer a guarantee.

What can a marketer guarantee?

They can guarantee many things a seasoned business can appreciate. The most common one is to use the best tools and tactics for desired outcomes. Or they will offer to produce deliverables in a timely fashion. A good one is flexibility and able to adjust strategy to frequent platform changes. Flexibility is a plus as Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Google often adjust algorithms.

A good marketer is a proactive marketer. They stay informed of changes in the industry and will prepare for worst case scenarios as well as they can.

If Instagram or Facebook change their algorithm it affects how well a strategy will work. By adjusting to changes, a marketer can leverage their knowledge and experience so that your campaign goes as well as it can under the circumstances.

This means adding more video to your marketing mix if Reels are the sudden traffic driver. They may advocate for amplified email marketing if further platforms changes are expected.

Naturally, a marketer will not randomly throw in trending tools and tactics but will make a considered effort to ensure that your campaign is positioned for success no matter the changes within the digital space.

They can guarantee their process or formula for results.

Most marketers have a tried and tested way of doing things. This recipe gives them results time and time again with different client situations.

The formula will be something that they have used over and over, adjusting for specific scenarios and then adapting it to your specific needs.

As this recipe is all their own they can guarantee how they will use it to make sure that the platforms, tools and resources that you provide are handled the best way possible.

How can you forecast success of the marketer’s guarantee?

Look at reviews or study the marketer’s case studies. These are a good indicator of whether their process will provide results for you or not.

If in doubt, go with your gut. If it does not feel right do not proceed.

Marketing, like everything you do in business, is a risk.

Go with what you believe in and leave what you do not. If your marketer cannot trust you to believe in their skills it can affect their performance. If you do not trust them, you will be hard to please and difficult to work with. Moreover, you will have an anxious time managing your expectations and patience.

As you can see marketing is a multi-factor business process. It takes on internal and external factors. Instead of asking for a guarantee, you are better off evaluating the package that your marketer is offering you. Measure it against your risk tolerance and the going rate of such services.

Should you trust in guarantees for marketing services?

If a seasoned agency or contractor tells you it will take months and $3000 to develop a following why would you think that an Instagram Growth expert can achieve 10 000 followers for just $300 in a month?

As a business you ought to know that this is too good to be true especially if you are new to the industry. There is no such thing as overnight success. Even celebrities had to show up in TV movies before they graced the red carpet so why would you expect your marketer to give you such a shortcut?

Is a guarantee necessary for the results you want?

Another important action is to align corporate goals with realistic expectations. I have had clients come to me desiring 45% increase in likes when what they really wanted was a steady 3% increase in engagement.

Others did not know what metric they wanted to measure as long as it beat the competition. The number of tactics and strategies that your marketer can design for you is infinite.

Are guarantees useful in the marketing industry?

Guarantees help consultants and marketers win that trust in the beginning of a contract. They also help alleviate concerns that a client may have in investing in a service whose impact will only be evident in month 4 or longer. The real strength of the guarantee is knowing how to measure its impact.

You must be clear on your goals or work with a marketing consultant to establish what you really need. Also have a way to compare the work done with expected return on investment.

This is better than asking for a guarantee which limits the potential benefits of working with a marketing professional. A guarantee can lead to great disappointment if the marketer fails to meet the perceived goals. Even if they have contributed to the success of your brand.

Over to you: do you believe in marketing guarantees? Have they worked in your favour or been a disappointment?

Looking for data-driven marketing strategy or an evaluation of your current digital marketing practices? Reach out today for a brief chat with us.