5 Ways To Unfuck Your Marketing

5 Ways to Unfuck Your Marketing & Advertising

Marketing and advertising can make or break a business. Yet, so many companies continue to sabotage their own success by making avoidable mistakes—whether it’s chasing shiny new trends, skimping on their budget, or refusing to trust experts who actually know what they’re doing.

If you’re serious about fixing your marketing and advertising, here are five brutally honest ways to unfuck it.

1. Know What You Know—And More Importantly, Know What You DON’T Know

Look, just because you watched a YouTube video on marketing doesn’t mean you’re a marketing expert. You wouldn’t build a house because you saw a tutorial on home construction, so why would you try to DIY your marketing and advertising?

There’s a reason successful businesses hire professionals. Strategic media placement, ad targeting, creative development, and branding all require expertise, experience, and data-driven decision-making.

If you don’t understand how to craft an effective marketing campaign, when and where to advertise, or how to build brand recognition—then defer to the experts. Winging it is not a strategy.

2. Stop Chasing Shiny New Trends Without a Strategy

Every year, some new marketing trend emerges that businesses feel obligated to jump on. Sometimes it’s TikTok. Sometimes it’s AI-generated content. Sometimes it’s influencer marketing.

Here’s the reality: Not every trend is right for your business.

Just because it’s possible to market your business on a new platform doesn’t mean it’s profitable or even relevant to your audience. Before you start throwing money at the next big thing, ask a professional if it makes sense for your business.

3. Stop Trying to Do Marketing on a Shoestring Budget

This might be tough to hear, but if you’re not budgeting properly for marketing and advertising, your business is already screwed.

Marketing is not an optional expense—it’s the engine that drives customer acquisition, brand awareness, and sales. If you only invest in marketing when sales are slow, you’re already too late.

Businesses fail not just because they lack sales, but because they are underfunded and unable to sustain growth. If you’re cutting corners in marketing, you’re crippling your business before it even has a chance to thrive.

Make marketing a priority. Budget for it. Plan for it. Invest in it. Every single month.

4. Build a Brand That Doesn’t Look Like a Cheap Afterthought

Branding is more than just a logo—it’s the identity of your business. And yet, so many companies treat it like an afterthought:

• Using random fonts and colors with no consistency
• Slapping together a logo from Fiverr that looks like it was made in 30 seconds
• Using stock photos that don’t reflect your brand personality

Your brand should be intentional, cohesive, and professional. Every piece of your marketing—from your website to your business cards to your social media presence—should reflect the same high-quality, well-thought-out identity.

If your branding looks cheap, inconsistent, or amateurish, that’s exactly what your audience will assume about your business.

5. Stay in Your Lane (And Leave Your Ego at the Door)

Not everyone is cut out to be the face of their brand—and that’s okay.

Some business owners insist on starring in their own commercials, video ads, or social media content, even when they have zero charisma, terrible camera presence, and no ability to communicate their message effectively.

If you aren’t good on camera, don’t force it.

There are better ways to showcase your brand without making yourself the centerpiece. Let professionals handle the visuals, voiceovers, and ad creatives. Focus on running your business, not feeding your vanity.

Conclusion: Fix It Before It Fails

If your marketing isn’t working, it’s probably because you’re doing it wrong.

The good news? Mad Men Marketing is here to help. We cut through the bullshit, build real strategies that actually drive results, and help businesses stop wasting time and money on ineffective marketing.

Ready to unfuck your advertising? Contact Mad Men Marketing today and let’s do this the right way.

A Blog About Blogging

How Can A Blog Impact My SEO?

Simply put, maintaining an up-to-date blog allows you to boost your search engine optimization in that, when you offer relevant information and answers, search engines will be more likely to position you higher up on their results pages.

In other words, when a customer searches a specific question on Google, the businesses that offer the most “optimized” blogs with regard to the answer will be the first to appear — and thus the most likely to be clicked on first.

In fact, research conducted by Demand Metric found that businesses who regularly blog produced, on average, 67% more leads per month.

So not only will a proper blogging strategy enhance your overall credibility from the viewpoint of the customer, but by effectively placing inbound hyperlinks and writing a persuasive call to action, you can also keep them in your sales funnel and guide them down the path to full conversion.

How Do I Optimize A Blog For SEO?

When considering Google’s ever-changing algorithms and the mountain of information available with regard to SEO, we understand that parsing through it all and finding the blog-specific bits can be challenging.

That’s why we’re here to help you with three quick tips to get you started:

The Key Is In The Word

Begin by picking one or two words, terms, or phrases that you would like associated with your business or blog. If you want to be a result when someone types in “air quality,” for example, that term should be one of your keywords.

Be sure to use your chosen keywords in your blog title, meta description, and in the body paragraphs. That being said, also be sure not to use “keyword stuffing” — basically, don’t choose more than two or three keywords and barrage your readers with them — and also make sure to use your chosen words in a coherent sentence.

How Much You Should Talk, Talk, Talk

WordPress reports that, “as a rule of thumb, blog posts should be at least 300 words to appear high in search engine results.” Meanwhile, the average length of a blog post has grown in recent years. A study conducted by SEMRush found that articles less than 3,000 words were not only three times more likely to get high traffic volumes, but they were also four times more likely to get shared.

Of course, that’s a pretty big gap from 300 words to 3,000 words. On average, we recommend keeping your long-form blog posts somewhere around 500 to 1,000 words maximum, with shorter blogs ranging from 300 to 500 words. Plus, remember that with the modern takeover of social media, audiences tend to have shorter attention spans.

Why Stop With Words?

Did you know research indicates that the majority of the human brain is dedicated to processing visual information, both directly and indirectly? Thus, by embedding visual content — be it videos, images, graphs, or something else — your audience will not only be more likely to become interested in the information, but search engines will also rank you higher. With alt text included, that is.

Think of it this way: the visual content itself is for your audience. Search engines, however, can’t see pictures. That’s why alt text is important — because it’s what tells those engines that there’s content embedded there. Oh, and don’t forget to use your keyword(s) in your alt text, too.

How Do I Know If My Blog Is Being Utilized Effectively?

If you’re already using Google Analytics as a part of your online marketing strategy, you’ll not only be able to automatically see how many people are on the different pages of your blog, but you can also dive into your “Audience Overview” and “Acquisition Overview” reports to get a better idea of how traffic to your pages has changed over time.

Otherwise, you might refer to several different markers of activity, such as…

Total page visits

Impressions and reach

The average length of a reader’s stay

And more

But, if you do not know how to find this information — or worse, you have no idea how to utilize it — you may find it difficult to adjust course and optimize your blog efficiently.

That’s why, here at Mad Men Marketing, we don’t just offer creative copywriters who will craft a cohesive blog for your business — we also offer research specialists who can curate your website’s analytics, thereby helping you to create the most successful and functional blogging strategy for your business.

You don’t have to embark on the journey of blogging and search engine optimization alone. If you’re ready to interact with your customers, contact Mad Men Marketing today by calling 904-355-1766!

The Epic Battle for Net Neutrality

What is net neutrality? Well, net neutrality is the “principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.” Basically, one website can’t be favored over another in terms of speed or accessibility just because they paid for it.

Typically, when this topic is discussed, proponents of net neutrality mention how consumers will not be given equal access to internet content such as streaming services unless the website or the consumer pays for it. They argue that smaller websites who cannot pay outrageous fees to keep their content accessible will fail. Freedom of internet speech will be given only to large corporations with enough money to pay for it. This is true, but not the only problem. All small businesses, not only those in entertainment, will be hurt if the internet is not kept open and accessible.

Smaller marketing firms, and by extension other small businesses, will be hurt tremendously if net neutrality ceases to exist. Small businesses often rely on the internet as a cost-effective form of advertising. The internet allows small businesses to reach people around the world at a much cheaper rate than traditional media. If net neutrality is abolished, small businesses will no longer be able to compete against large corporations for cheap ad-space on the internet. Large corporations will have the money to advertise on sites that are more accessible to consumers. 

In short, this is a very big deal.  Just ask Netflix…who had a brief fallout with Comcast…their streaming content was streaming noticeably slower until they reached a compromise with the internet service provider.  Lo and behold, in February, they began to see an immediate improvement (or perhaps just restoration of where it once was) in streaming speed.  Netflix was literally held hostage by Comcast until its demands were met.  It's naive to think they playing field will ever be completely level, but steps should definitely be taken to ensure that we're doing all we can.

Marketing to Millennials:  Are you sure you want to?

Is this push short-sighted?  There's not a doubt in my mind that what is perceived as trendy, fashionable, or “in” is influenced largely upon the opinions of the younger generation.  That being said, Millennials are one of the smaller demo. groups.  Not only that, but they also have much less buying power than young professionals and established businessmen and women.  Jean Twenge, author of the book Generation Me, credits Millennials with possessing the traits of confidence and tolerance, however, they also exude a certain narcissism and self-entitlement.

Should you market to Millennials?  Yes…but as a part of a broader, more holistic approach…perhaps to paint a picture of a product as being trendy that will ultimately have a trickle-down effect on older, more affluent demos.

The Highly Controversial Blog That Mentions Syria

Investors are very cautious, more accurately put, they're probably straddling the line between prudent caution and paranoia.  The growing concerns about a multi-national force becoming entangled in a region that has demonstrated continued and unrelenting civil turmoil only serves to further perpetuate the financial instability as it pertains to the S&P 500, and the DOW.  Moreover, as one country goes, so does the rest of the world.

In the recent past, Greece was in financial jeopardy and although a relatively insignificant player in the global economy when you consider heavy hitters like the U.S., France, India, Brazil, China, etc…, it had immediate ramifications that resounded across the world due to the interconnectivity of economic interests and Greece's proclivity toward nationalistic pride and threats to break with the Euro.  

I would expect AT LEAST that kind of impact on the world market as resources are re-allocated to quell the disturbance in Syria.  These are uncertain times and uncertainty can lead to panic, especially by those who are expected to lead us economically because they tend to protect their own interests first.  So in the best interest of fear-mongering, strap on your kevlar vest, continue to go to work, and just act like nothing is happening because chances are your day-to-day will not change.