Six habits marketing built for a world that’s gone.

1. Silos aren’t the failure. The world they were designed for is gone.

Web, content creation, marketing automation, brand, martech, social media, campaigns… teams full of talented people, focused on their priorities and getting their work done. Because this is how marketing teams are set up, right?

At best, teams that are performing brilliantly at an individual level. At worst, teams that are working in isolation, pursuing their own objectives, managing their own priorities and measuring success on their own terms.

But critically, lacking an understanding of the bigger picture and the importance of connection between teams, to underpin a connected customer experience. Ultimately, unintentionally risking commercial outcomes that marketing is supposed to support because of a lack of intimacy with the business.

And stressing that everyone in marketing needs to understand their role in contributing to the business…but not really seeing or believing it.

The irony? The very structures built to make marketing more effective are the reason it can’t deliver what the business actually needs. Each function delivering what it’s been asked to deliver, yet the collective effort falling short. The individual parts working well, the whole somehow producing less than the sum.

We've optimised individual marketing functions without necessarily making marketing itself any more effective.

2. It’s never been the technology. It’s what you bolt it onto.

For years, martech vendors and service providers have promised us the road to a data-driven promised land. Richer customer insights, rapid, at volume personalised content, unrivalled market insights and customer relevance, and ever-greater marketing effectiveness.

We drank the Kool-Aid. We invested, installed, integrated (sometimes). And then invested some more.

The result? Across many organisations, a sprawling collection of platforms, tools and technologies bolted onto processes that haven't fundamentally changed. More tech, more complexity, more cost. But not necessarily better marketing.

Now AI promises another revolution. There's a real danger we'll repeat the same mistakes, simply bolting increasingly sophisticated technology onto outdated operating models.

The opportunity isn't to make the old ways of working faster. It's to fundamentally rethink how marketing gets done.

3. More headcount was never the strategy. It was the only lever anyone had.

We've all been there. Spotted a capability gap, looked at the team, recognised the bandwidth issue, identified the missing skills... and recruited another head. It’s the default response. On repeat.

And what have we ended up with? A bigger team for sure. But not necessarily a smarter, more capable or more productive one.

We've become conditioned to equate greater capability with increased headcount, when the real question should be whether we need another permanent role at all.

In a world where specialist expertise can be accessed on demand, and the right intelligent automation can take on an increasing share of the workload, surely it's time to challenge that thinking.

The answer isn't always more people. It's a smarter combination of the right people, the right expertise and the right technology.

4. The effort isn’t the problem. What it adds up to is.

The team is busy, running at full capacity, juggling competing priorities, and staying late to get projects over the line. The campaign is live, phew. A team of heroes!

Yet somehow, the numbers don't reflect the effort. The CEO keeps asking questions, the CFO wants better answers, and marketing finds itself once again having to explain how marketing works and the progress it’s making. Why can’t they see it?

It's a familiar frustration. Marketing teams working harder than ever, but still struggling to demonstrate the value they're creating in a language the business understands and values.

And therein lies the problem. Marketing has become very good at measuring what marketing does, but not always so good at demonstrating what marketing actually delivers.

Being busy isn't the same as being productive. And being productive doesn’t mean we’re creating commercial value.

5. The inefficiency isn’t yours. It’s inherited.

More technology, more tools, more people and more processes. Yet somehow, we're still dealing with manual handovers, things falling through the cracks, last-minute all-hands-on-deck priorities and endless conversations with stakeholders to establish what they actually want.

Then there are the multiple layers of approvals, the constant chasing of feedback and the never-ending quest for the right data to populate this week’s report.

Less time on marketing. More time managing escalations, juggling priorities and making sure nothing gets dropped.

So we adapt. We manage expectations, negotiate delivery dates, make best-case commitments and quietly accept that this is just how things work.

All the while, there's that nagging feeling that there must be a better way. But finding the time to challenge the status quo isn’t for today.

We've become so good at working around inefficiency that we've stopped questioning why it exists in the first place.

6. Marketing was built for a predictable world. That world is gone.

In a stable, predictable world, traditional marketing functions work rather well. Anticipating market dynamics and customer needs, keeping an eye on the competition, a good grip on the tools. Planning meticulously, managing expectations, getting the sign-offs and delivering projects on time. Moving on to the next.

Controlled. Predictable. Safe.

But that world has gone. Shame.

In its place? Daily curveballs, fast shifting priorities, unexpected disruptions and, inevitably, stakeholders who just don’t get it.

Suddenly, things start slipping through the cracks. Decisions take too long, momentum slows and keeping pace with the business feels harder than it should. The processes and structures that once provided stability are now getting in the way of progress.

And here's the uncomfortable reality: the tried and trusted ways of getting things done are increasingly becoming the very things stopping us from getting things done.

We've built marketing functions designed to manage predictability. What we need now are marketing functions built to thrive on change.

Summary

Too many marketing functions are still built around yesterday's beliefs, assumptions and ways of working. Structures, processes and attitudes designed for a world that increasingly no longer exists. While the world is moving on, much of marketing is not.

Tinkering around the edges won't cut it. Now is the time for marketing leaders to fundamentally rethink their operating models and to shift mindsets from the comfort of a traditional set-up to one that actively anticipates and responds to future corporate needs without constraints.

To reinforce marketing’s connection to commercial outcomes, embrace intelligent automation, and re-think how expert talent is both assessed and accessed.

And to create a new marketing function that is the first to realise what the business needs. The opportunity exists, so let’s grasp it.