“It's Not Us With The Problem”

“It's you.”

It’s always a bit suspect when pros discourage amateurs from trying their hand. Doesn’t matter what their true motive is, it always appears as if they’re trying to seal off the sandbox they think of as their own.

So we know that’s the risk we take when we try to warn off DIY marketers. We know we look like we have a petulance problem.

But hand on heart, to the amateur advertisers we say this: It’s not us with the problem, it’s you.

Okay, well, perhaps “potential problem” might be more generous. Every business owner who eschews professional marketing help in favor of shot-in-the-dark efforts might potentially hit the bulls-eye every time.

Conversely, there’s that potential for alienating customers. For opening up a can of I-wish-I-hadn’t-done-that.

Marketing designers, account specialists, writers, and the rest of our gang get into this field because we’re good at it — and we get results. Our clients are good at what they do, too, and have the sense to let everyone stick to the jobs they’re best at. We wouldn’t try to run their shops, and we’d heartily object if they tried to run ours.

Marketing looks easy from the outside. That’s all. Looks easy to slap some words with images, to shoot 30 seconds of video, so that’s exactly what these would-be pro-ams do.

You know this because you’ve seen examples. And you knew immediately what you were looking at. Some become internet-famous for their stumbling attempts, and for video that comes off looking like self-parody.

And in all fairness, some resonate with the buying public. Some reap profits. These are the ones that achieve real pro-am status: amateur players getting pro results.

We won’t say amateur efforts never pay off, but we’re sanguine in saying they never pay off with consistency. That’s the difference our pro standing brings — we’re consistently on target, consistently playing our best game. It’s born of experience and of a devoted fascination with the intersecting alchemy of design and persuasion. Of commerce and content.

We’re not hiding any rulebooks from the amateurs, because this is a business without rules. The closest thing we have to rules, we break constantly…or rather, we break them precisely the number of times necessary, precisely when and where it best serves our clients. Amateurs might bend the rules or adhere to them religiously, but you have to wonder how well considered that is, and whether they’re thinking about it as strategically as we would.

Print, broadcast, internet, and billboards — there’s plenty of marketing bandwidth hereabouts, plenty of room, in other words, for a pro-am circuit. In good conscience we don’t encourage it. In terms of pure self-interest, however, we really should.

All this amateur work, to be quite frank, is making us look great.

The C4

1. More business owners try their amateur hands at marketing and advertising, than any other best-left-to-the-pros services. We can’t prove this empirically but it’s anecdotally solid. Business owners who have no problem letting their general contractors build their properties or their lawyers file their briefs, are willing to take a swing at homegrown signage, advertising, or integrated marketing.
   
2. There’s no reason some of them can’t be marketing savants. No reason some of them can’t be plain lucky. Pro-am advertising occasionally pays off.
   
3. Consistency is what we’re competing on. That and experience, confidence, and dedication.
   
4. Truth told, it’s win-win for us either way. Either the amateur yields to the pro, or he makes him shine in contrast.