Most organisations don’t actually have a marketing problem. They have a strategy problem. Yet the same reflex keeps showing up: we need to post more, we need to run ads, we need to “do something with AI”.
Understandable, but very few teams start with the questions that really matter: why are we doing this, who exactly are we here for, what are we promising, and what truly sets us apart from the ten other brands saying almost the same thing?
When that foundation is missing, activity is easily mistaken for direction. Campaigns, social posts, a new tagline or even a rebrand become isolated actions. Growth stops feeling like building and starts feeling like continuous firefighting.
First comes brand strategy: getting crystal clear on who you are, what you stand for, and which specific value you want to occupy in your audience’s mind.
Then comes your go-to-market strategy: how you bring that value to the market, which customer segments you serve, and with which propositions.
Only then do branding and marketing follow: how you show up, how you sound, and how you build trust over time.
In theory this order is obvious. In practice, teams often flip it. They jump into doing instead of thinking, chase growth through activity instead of direction, and then end up frustrated that “marketing isn’t working”. The real issue is that they are building on sand.
When strategy truly is the starting point, the dynamic shifts. Your message becomes more consistent because everyone works from the same core. Collaboration between teams becomes smoother and the output gets noticeably stronger.
Campaigns reinforce each other instead of competing for attention. Your content develops a recognisable voice. Sales conversations feel more natural because marketing and sales are aligned around the same promise to the customer. In that scenario, marketing does work, precisely because it rests on a clear, deliberate foundation.
The answer is rarely “do more”. The answer is to know much better why you do what you do. Once the strategic base is clear, it becomes far easier to choose which actions genuinely drive growth and which ones simply add noise.
Marketing stops being a collection of disconnected tactics and becomes a consistent expression of who you are as a brand and the space you want to claim in your audience’s mind.
Do you recognise the impulse to jump straight into campaigns, content and tools while the strategic base is still fuzzy? Then this is the moment to go back to your foundation first.
Marcus helps B2B organisations build that foundation: from brand strategy and go-to-market to branding and marketing that follow logically from it. If you’d like to explore what a clear strategic foundation could mean for your organisation, get in touch with Marcus and start building on something that truly lasts.
