‘No marketing’ sounds a lot like marketing to me

Sound familiar? It ought to. The concept of ‘no marketing’ has won credence in recent years thanks to a wave of startup and challenger brands that have proudly hailed it as their ‘secret sauce’.

Edgy, cool, a badge of honor if you will, it’s a bold statement. But don’t be fooled. The myth of ‘no marketing’ is exactly that, a tale spun by brands to disguise that they’re doing exactly what they claim not to – marketing.

Debunking the ‘no marketing’ myth

So why do they do it? There are two possible explanations. The first is that the people who claim not to market themselves or their business don’t understand what marketing is. Or, more commonly, they think it will make their message resonate more strongly with their audiences.

In a world of consumerism, where a dozen different brands are all bidding for our attention at any given moment, it’s easy to see how this line of thinking could apply.

For consumer brands, it’s a way of speaking to those disaffected by capitalism. It’s a way of saying ’we’re not frivolous with our money, we invest every dime into our product for the benefit of you, the consumer’.

But make no mistake, in doing so they’re making a conscious decision. They’re putting a narrative out into the world that marketing is bad or that they believe this is the view held by their target audience. And they’re using that very narrative as a stealth marketing tactic.

Marketing is more than you think

The great irony, of course, is that those who lay claim to ‘no marketing’ success often do so against the backdrop of a well-designed pitch deck or website, during a slick corporate video or in a high-profile media interview.

Modern marketing takes many forms. It’s true that some startups steer clear of traditional paid advertising in their early days, but most will invest in community building, earned media and PR, content strategy, internal marketing to their employees. Even their mission statement and values, it’s all marketing.

As for those who insist it’s all about the product… well they’re not wrong. Product has long been one of the four Ps of marketing, a model popularized by Neil Borden back in the 50s. It’s the origination point for all marketing activity and a brand’s raison d’etre.

But there’s a reason it’s only one of four elements. It’s not enough to have a great product any more. There’s too much choice, too much competition. Take the fintech space, in which there are hundreds of vendors clamoring for a share of people’s wallets. To cut through the noise, you have to sell your vision of what that product can do and how it can change people’s lives. It’s better to get the product 90% of the way and spend your remaining time and resource building demand for it than trying to perfect something that doesn’t have an audience.

Reframing marketing for business success

Often, the people who lay claim to ‘no marketing’ come from technical backgrounds. They start with solving a real-world problem but fall short on selling it to the market – on showing they have momentum and the ‘wind in their sails’. Good things attract more good things, but if you don’t put anything out into the world then don’t expect anything in return.

In time, even the most hardcore of the ‘no marketing’ brigade come around to the value marketing brings to their business (if they were ever really duped by their own rhetoric in the first place). But it’s a shame that marketing is so often deemed a waste of money in the vital growth stages. It’s far riskier to put no spend into marketing than it is to invest in building an audience for your product – let alone demonstrating to investors that you have a proven strategy in place to acquire customers.

By putting back into the market, illustrating a fit for what you’re trying to sell and, most importantly, telling a consistent, credible story, businesses can make people buy into their brand and not just their product.

The real ‘danger’ is in viewing marketing as an extra, a support function – or, worse, an afterthought. While some companies won’t get the value of marketing in their early days, it’s something they’ll quickly have to confront in the realities of the market.

Fintech investment in the UK jumped sevenfold last year and we can expect more record funding rounds and valuations across sectors in the months ahead. Only by reframing marketing as fundamental to the future direction of their business can brands truly differentiate themselves.

A final point

It doesn’t service brands to shun marketing any more (if it ever did). ‘No marketing’ might remain a catchphrase for some startup founders, but it rings hollow in a crowded marketplace. It’s high time businesses stopped using it as a calling card and we need to dispel the false sense of bravado that comes with the claim.

‘No marketing’ sounds a lot like marketing to me.

Laurel Wolfe is vice-president of marketing at banking platform Mambu. For more Marketing Secrets of Fast-Growth Brands, check out The Drum’s latest Deep Dive.