Marketing efforts can be thought of as existing on a spectrum between Appeasement Marketing and Results Marketing, making stakeholders happy and actually getting things done.
Online marketing provides for its effects to be easily analyzed, affording marketers the ability to optimize efforts by keeping what works, and steering away from poor performers. This has led to a new methodology, a results based approach that has been aptly called “Results Marketing”.
Standing in juxtaposition to Results Marketing is its ugly sister, Appeasement Marketing, and if you’ve ever had some marketing responsibility then she’s probably found a way to get you to take her to too many dances so far!
Appeasement Marketing is marketing done without any priority of result whatsoever. Let’s look at the dictionary.com definition of appease:
Sometimes its easier to make the king happy by giving him what he wants, and that’s sloppy old Appeasement Marketing. Sometimes you’ve got to change the colors in a webpage multiple times. Sometimes you’ve got to adjust an image beyond the degree that anyone could possibly notice. Sometimes you’ve got to put on a production to an empty theater. These are the times I beg a client to stop and think it out with me, the times when I can’t burn the client’s money after bad results.
Results Marketing involves being able to show the king what works. Appeasement marketing involves showing the king what he wants. It’s not just good enough to give the king what he wants though, when you’re a marketer sometimes you’ve got to say no to Appeasement Marketing.
