5 Signs Your Marketing is Outdated And How to Fix It

At the beginning of 2025, I set a personal goal to connect with more founders and marketers, understand their challenges, and explore how they drive demand in their industries. In one of these conversations, I reached out to a founder, let’s call him Mr. S—to learn about his company’s approach to marketing. He assumed I was pitching a lead-generation service and responded with a strong stance:

"Hey Anirudh, you will not be able to generate a single lead for us. We engaged a few lead-gen partners on a no-cost basis but with a revenue-share model of $50K per closed deal (our average ticket size is $1M). Unfortunately, none of them were able to generate a single qualified lead.”

This response highlighted a common challenge. Many businesses continue relying on outdated lead-generation tactics, expecting results without adapting to modern marketing strategies. They view marketing through a transactional lens rather than as a long-term, strategic function that builds relationships, nurtures trust, and drives sustainable demand.

Recognizing this pattern, I reached out to experienced marketing VPs and CMOs to analyze the key signs of an outdated marketing strategy. Together, we identified the most common pitfalls that prevent businesses from achieving growth.

Let’s explore these insights and how companies can shift toward a more effective, data-driven marketing approach.

1. Sales Control Marketing Strategy

But great companies operate differently, they let marketing drive demand, not just respond to sales’ demands.

For marketing to work well, it needs to have a say in important business decisions. Marketing strategy shouldn’t be controlled only by sales teams, it should be a key part of the company’s growth plan. Business owners and leaders need to understand that investing in marketing efforts isn’t just about getting leads fast, it’s also about building a strong brand, creating demand, and earning customer trust over time.

I met a founder last year who told me their company had launched seven new products in the past three years. Yet, 90% of their revenue still came from their original product.

They had scaled their PPC budgets, expanded their email outreach, and doubled down on cold calling. But none of it worked. Why?

Because there was zero market research or positioning strategy for these new products. They were developed based on what the Sales VP wanted, not what the market actually needed.

Sales-driven companies focus only on capturing existing demand (cold email, PPC, SEO) instead of creating demand. They chase low-hanging fruit people already searching for a solution but fail to build brand awareness or educate the market. A good marketing strategy focuses on multiple areas to ensure steady demand generation, even when times are tough; otherwise, the company will struggle to keep customers and stand out in competitive markets.

Why This Is a Problem

1. Demand Isn’t Consistent
   If you rely only on capturing demand, what happens when the economy slows down or competitors take market share? Your entire lead pipeline dries up. I worked with a company last year whose product demand declined because a better product entered the market. The founders lacked experience in repositioning their brand, and as a result, this led to layoffs, a decline in profits, and ultimately, everything falling apart.

2. Lower-Ticket Clients, Higher Churn
   Another issue with this approach is that it attracts lower-ticket clients and increases churn rates. Since people don’t know your brand, they only engage because they saw your content on Google search or received a cold call. There’s no real connection between the client and your brand, which is why conversion rates are low, ticket sizes are shrinking, and lead quality is declining—even as you increase lead targets.

How to Fix It

If you’re a founder, this starts with you. You need to give marketing a seat at the table and allow them to shape your business strategy, not just run sales-driven campaigns.

Yes, the transition will be challenging, but five years from now, you’ll be grateful you made it.

If your marketing team is merely serving sales, you’re not only losing top marketing talent—you’re also compromising your business’s future. Based on my 8+ years of experience, in six out of seven cases where sales tried to dominate marketing, the sales team turned out to be completely incompetent, with little understanding of marketing dynamics. 

2. Relying on SEO and Google Ads as a Product-Market Fit Indicator

Many businesses think they’ve “found” product-market fit simply because they get leads and make sales through SEO and Google Ads. But this is a big mistake.

The $3 Million Mistake

Remember the founder I mentioned earlier? They invested $3 million in developing seven new products, assuming that since their original product was successful, the market would naturally adopt the new ones within the same industry. 

However, even after three years of demand capture efforts through SEO and Google Ads 90% of their revenue still came from their very first product.

Why? Because they had no ideal customer profile (ICP), no clear market segmentation, and no deep understanding of their buyers.

Why This Is a Problem

• SEO & PPC Only Capture Existing Demand: These channels don’t create demand, they only help you find people who are already looking. That’s why relying on them can give a false sense of security..
• Targeting is too broad: Many businesses fail to define their ideal customer profile (ICP), leading to wasted spending on SEO and Google Ads campaigns that don’t attract the right buyers.

What’s the Solution?

To build a strong, long-term business strategy, companies need more than just SEO-driven lead generation and Google Ads traffic. Yes, these strategies can bring in website visitors and short-term sales, but they don’t prove that a product truly fits the market.

Invest in Market Research

A company’s marketing strategy should start with market research, not just Google Ads performance or SEO rankings. This means:

• Competitor analysis – Find out what’s missing in the market.
• Buyer personas – Study real customers’ behaviors, interests, and problems.
• Customer feedback – Check reviews, social media comments, and direct messages.
• Search intent research – Look at high-ranking keywords and search trends to understand what people actually need.

When businesses use this information, they can create SEO content that attracts the right audience instead of just any audience. This improves customer retention and builds brand loyalty.

A focused approach helps businesses improve Google Ads ROI, increase organic search visibility, and get better engagement rates.

The HubSpot Example

If you think SEO is a long-term, foolproof strategy, look at what happened to HubSpot.

In early 2024, HubSpot—one of the pioneers of inbound marketing—saw its organic traffic drop by over 30% due to Google’s algorithm updates. Companies that had built their entire marketing model around SEO suddenly found their lead flow crashing overnight.

The lesson? SEO alone is not a sustainable strategy. Companies that fail to invest in brand-building, demand generation, and audience relationships will always be at the mercy of algorithm changes.

So, what changed? Here’s what I did within four days of the HubSpot news breaking:

1. Ungated all top-funnel and mid-funnel content to make value accessible without barriers.
2. Shifted focus to brand awareness and demand creation to drive long-term engagement.
3. Advocated for an account-based experience (ABX) strategy to build stronger customer relationships.
4. Reorganized attribution models, moving away from last-click reliance to a broader perspective on customer journeys.

Marketing isn’t static. The companies that adjust now will be the ones that lead in the next wave of growth.

👉 Don’t let your marketing budget go to waste! Get expert insights on demand creation and market positioning. Let’s brainstorm.

The Role of a Growth Marketer

Businesses looking to connect product development, SEO strategy, and customer acquisition need a product marketer and a growth leader. A growth marketer helps in:

• Aligning product messaging with real market demand.
• Ensuring marketing efforts attract the right audience.
• Optimizing Google Ads campaigns based on customer behavior rather than just performance metrics.
• Using content marketing to establish industry authority.
• Implementing conversion-focused SEO strategies that bring in leads likely to convert.

Without this, businesses risk spending on high-cost-per-click ads and low-converting SEO traffic that does not translate into long-term sales.

Utilizing Customer Insights for SEO

A strong SEO marketing strategy is more than ranking for keywords. It involves:

• Conducting customer interviews, surveys, and case studies.
• Identifying common pain points influencing buying decisions.
• Understanding emotional triggers to improve ad engagement.
• Tracking behavioral trends to refine social media marketing and SEO content.

With these insights, businesses can create content that drives sustainable growth rather than depending on paid ads and algorithm shifts.

The Importance of a Go-to-Market Strategy

SEO and Google Ads bring traffic, but they do not confirm market fit. A full go-to-market strategy includes:

• Audience research.
• Clear positioning.
• Data-driven marketing.
• Investing in customer insights.
• Hiring growth experts.
• Refining the ideal customer profile.

These steps lead to higher conversion rates, improved SEO performance, and long-term success in competitive markets.

3. Thinking in Terms of Channels, Not Strategy

If your marketing plan starts with, "Let’s do Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, or a webinar," then you don’t have a strategy. You have a list of tactics.

A lot of businesses make the mistake of planning their digital marketing strategy around specific channels. They focus on lead generation but forget the bigger picture.

Instead of choosing a channel first, businesses should start by asking:

• What is our unique value proposition (UVP)?
• Who is our target audience, and where do they spend their time?
• How can we communicate our values effectively?

When a marketing strategy turns into just a list of tactics, it becomes hard to stand out. Businesses start chasing trends instead of building a strong brand foundation that supports long-term growth.

Why This Approach is Problematic

The issue with focusing only on channels is that it reflects a lack of market understanding and poor prioritization. If you truly understand your market and ICP, you would clearly know which channels your ICP spends most of their time on and what success rates to expect. This also indicates how well your marketing team’s vision aligns with that of the founder.

For me, this is crucial—I rarely work with companies that take a channel-first approach, as it often signals deeper issues with the organization’s vision. In such cases, marketing is reduced to a lead-generation function rather than a strategic growth driver. Channels make up only 20% of your overall marketing, and while this approach may work in B2C where large sample sizes allow for rapid testing and optimization, it does not work effectively in B2B

What’s the Solution?

Instead of focusing on marketing channels, businesses should first work on three key areas:

1. Clear Brand Positioning

A strong brand positioning strategy helps businesses define:

• What problem they solve for customers
• How they’re different from competitors
• What makes their product unique (unique selling points - USPs)

With this in place, businesses can create consistent brand messaging across all marketing campaigns.

2. Understanding the Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is crucial for a successful digital marketing campaign. Businesses should analyze key factors such as demographics (age, gender, location, and income level), psychographics (interests, values, and lifestyle), and behavioral patterns (online activity, purchasing habits, and preferred platforms). Gaining these insights allows businesses to craft more relevant messaging, select the right marketing strategies, and allocate their budget more effectively, ensuring better engagement and higher conversion rates.

3. Developing a Strong Messaging Framework

well-planned messaging strategy makes sure that all marketing content is aligned with the brand’s mission. This includes:

• Brand voice and tone (formal, casual, friendly, expert)
• Core brand messages (key selling points and differentiators)
• Call-to-action (CTA) strategies to increase conversions

Once these marketing basics are in place, businesses can use SEO, social media, and paid ads to fuel long-term growth. 

Prioritizing strategy over channels helps create a data-driven plan that strengthens brand awareness and boosts customer engagement.

👉 Marketing works best when strategy comes first. Let’s build a plan that strengthens your brand, connects with the right audience, and drives real growth. Book a strategy session.

4. Relying on Last-Touch Attribution

Many marketers assume that the best way to measure marketing success is by looking at the last action a customer takes before buying. This is called last-touch attribution. While it may seem like a simple way to track results, it does not show the full customer journey. People go through multiple steps before deciding to buy, especially in B2B marketing, where the process takes longer and includes different touchpoints.

For example, a potential customer might:

1. See a social media ad
2. Read a blog post
3. Watch a webinar
4. Get an email newsletter
5. Click on a Google search ad before finally buying

If a business only looks at the last step, they will ignore the earlier efforts that helped bring in the customer. This can lead to wrong marketing decisions and missed opportunities.

Why This Is a Problem

1. Underinvestment in Brand Awareness and Top-of-Funnel Marketing

Since organic content, SEO, and social media marketing don’t always drive immediate sales, businesses often end up cutting their spending on them.But these efforts help build brand awareness and keep customers engaged over time. Over time, this can result in lower brand recognition and trust since customers haven't had enough touchpoints throughout their journey, ultimately leading to a decline in business.

2. Short-Term Focus at the Expense of Long-Term Growth

If a business only cares about quick results, they may focus too much on PPC ads and ignore strategies like that focus on brand-building. While ads bring in short-term leads, long-term success comes from creating a strong brand presence and keeping customers loyal.

👉 Is your marketing focused on leads or engaged accounts? Let’s refine your approach for better conversions. Schedule a session.

What’s the Solution?

To improve how businesses track marketing success, they should use a multi-touch attribution model. This means looking at all the interactions a customer has before making a purchase. Here’s how businesses can do that:

Multi-touch attribution helps businesses understand how different marketing touchpoints contribute to a conversion. Instead of giving full credit to the first or last interaction, it evaluates the role each touchpoint plays in the customer journey. 

For example, if a customer first sees a Facebook ad, later clicks a Google search ad, and then signs up for a free trial, multi-touch attribution considers how each step influenced the final decision. Different models distribute credit in various ways. 

The linear model gives equal credit to all interactions, while others weigh certain touchpoints more heavily based on their role. This approach helps businesses allocate their marketing budget more effectively by understanding which channels contribute to conversions.

Businesses that move beyond last-touch attribution and use a multi-touch attribution model will have a clearer understanding of what works. This helps them:

Make smarter marketing decisions by allocating budgets more effectively and focusing on strategies that drive real results. A well-planned approach can help you build a stronger customer acquisition and retention strategy, ensuring long-term growth and engagement.

5. You're Tracking Leads

This perspective might challenge conventional marketing metrics, but it’s a shift that aligns with how account-based experience (ABX) is transforming B2B marketing. Traditional lead tracking focuses on individual conversions, but I’ve adjusted the way I measure marketing performance for my teams. While revenue generation and opportunity creation remain essential, the emphasis on leads is diminishing. Instead, the focus is on account penetration—measuring how deeply an account engages with marketing content, signaling a higher likelihood of conversion. 

Rethinking Lead Segmentation

Most businesses segment leads into hot leads and warm leads. A hot lead might be someone who submits a demo request, while a warm lead could be someone who downloads a whitepaper or engages with content marketing. But in a multi-touchpoint marketing strategy, a single engagement doesn’t indicate purchase intent. A potential B2B buyer consuming multiple pieces of educational content signals a more engaged account, rather than just an isolated lead.

The Importance of Account Penetration

In my experience, it typically takes six to eight warm leads from an account before a demo request happens. Before reaching that stage, pushing for a sales call or a business development rep (BDR) interaction is premature. Instead, the goal should be to guide these leads through a structured nurture strategy, increasing account engagement until there’s a clear buying signal.

Following the HubSpot SEO incident, one of the key changes I implemented was removing all top-funnel and mid-funnel marketing materials. Have you considered doing the same to enhance your reach and engagement with target accounts?

Should You Gate Content Marketing Assets?

If the goal is to drive account penetration, restricting access to educational resources may slow down buyer journey progression.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, B2B marketing strategies should consider whether gating content is helping or hindering account engagement. Every organization’s content strategy will vary, but the key is to create a framework that aligns with audience behavior, ensuring that content distribution fuels demand generation rather than just collecting leads.

Shift your focus from individual leads to engaged accounts. Build relationships that lead to real opportunities. Start refining your marketing approach today

Want to future-proof your marketing strategy? Let’s explore personalized marketing strategy that align with your business. Let’s connect.

Final Thoughts on Marketing Strategy and Attribution

There’s no single way to succeed in marketing. Every business, whether it’s a startup or a well-known brand, faces different challenges. While there are many marketing strategies, none of them guarantee instant success. Marketing is an ongoing process that requires creativity, adaptability, and a deep understanding of your target audience.

There’s No One-Size-Fits-All Marketing Plan

Many businesses hope to find a set of marketing tactics that will work for them instantly. The truth is, no marketing book, online course, or business consultant can give you a perfect formula for success. Don't hold back when it comes to marketing innovation. Instead of playing it safe and avoiding risks, be open to experimenting and bold in your campaigns and strategies.

If you spend too much time trying to get approval from multiple stakeholders before making a decision, you could be holding back your brand’s true potential. Marketing is about taking smart risks, trying new ideas, and seeing what works. Whether it’s launching a new product, testing video marketing, or running an unconventional campaign, businesses that push boundaries often see the best results.

Disclaimer : This blog is not AI-generated. AI was used for grammar checks, but the insights, strategies, and experiences shared come from my work in marketing over the past eight years.