Don’t Crave Efficiency in Marketing. Crave Effectiveness.

We glorify multitasking, even though researchers advise against it. Managing to do 30 things at once wouldn’t please us. Instead, we’d start looking for ways to increase that number. How can we do 31 things at once? Okay, what about 32? 33? And so on. But why do we strive to do everything as fast as possible and, if possible, all at once?

Well, for the sake of efficiency. It’s why we’re in a constant search for tips and tricks that speed up our work. Or, why we’re always up for trying new tools that will automatize some of our tasks. And sure, focusing on efficiency provides amazing results in some industries. But is marketing one of them?

In my humble opinion, no.

Efficiency will do the trick in the short-term. Sure, we can do the types of campaigns everyone is doing, regardless of them being relevant to our brand or not. We can focus on increasing the vanity metrics (likes, followers, reactions) — they look good on paper. Daily posting on every platform sounds good — everyone is doing it, so it has to work.

But we should be aware this won’t do the trick in the long-term.

Efficiency doesn’t equal effectiveness. At least not in marketing.

The first one might bring short and quick wins, indeed. But it can be a step back in the brand-building process. If you want long-term results, focus on being effective. Not every Facebook post has to include a CTA. Not every Instagram story has to make your audience buy. You don’t have to be present on every platform daily.

If you want to keep on reading on this subject, check out this article on vanity metrics, this one on effectiveness and ROI, this one on what is effective marketing or this one on which metrics you should measure to see if you’re strategy is effective.