Marketing in a World of Rapid Change

I'm off to my second class MIT this morning, where I teach business planning and marketing, and three weeks already at Tufts' Derby Entrepreneurship Center, where I teach marketing and sales. This semester, there's a fair amount of major changes in my content from what and how I taught marketing just two semesters ago.  

What's changed?

• Much more active engagement in short exercises like... "What do you think about that ad or that social post and why?", or "What was the cost of this ad/post/podcast/video/mailer and explain the impact?".  To a degree, at this early point in a 13-week semester, I'm not necessarily interested in the correctness of the answers; I just want active engagement and free thinking.  
• We're using AI everywhere!  A much more directive requirement not just in research, but also in content creation.

What hasn't changed is...

• How I teach in providing "Content in Context". At Tufts, my TAs and I provide tactical content within the context of six companies who have signed up for marketing plans.  5-6 students work weekly with the CEO or VP...just as if they were a marketing agency...in developing and actuating complex marketing plans.  To make it real, 40% of their team grade comes from company management. 
• "Marketing is Everything".   In 1991, HBR published Regis McKenna's, (one of the true founders of Silicon Valley), iconic article stating that the core principle of marketing...communicating value, should be applied to every aspect of business.  All these years later, sales success in business today is all about marketing and selling both corporate and personal value! 

In class, and in our consulting practice, I need to make the complex simple, and marketing can be overly complex with hundreds of choices in platforms, tactics, and costs.  This Monday morning, here's 3 concepts to consider, especially now as we gear up for the always-critical Q4.  These strategies should also be priorities as you and your team are preparing for your 2026 planning sessions: 

1. We need to sell stuff!   Marketing's #1 job is not about ad creation, branding or social posts or the very long list of events, podcasts, mailers and videos. It is "simply" to deliver highly qualified leads to salespeople...or in the case of consumer products, move that very specific person to decide to buy.  There are always lots of marketing metrics to consider, but the most critical is always the cost over the period of time it took to convert a marketing activity to revenue.

2.  This is the time to focus on growth!  We all understand the current environment of uncertainties and the resulting focus on productivity and cost.  Having said that, this is not a time to cut back on marketing expenses!  This is a time to deeply involve the head of marketing in all aspects of your 2026 business planning.  While 65% of CEOs believe that they understand modern marketing, we believe that only around 30% actually do.  Consider giving marketing custody of the customer where they own the customer journey in partnership with sales, engineering and, yes, even finance. Make the conversation about the customer and not about the departments.   

3. Agree on common KPIs!  We're huge in deep diving into long lists of marketing and sales metrics, and while those metrics are critical to running, adjusting and fine tuning the marketing machine, focus...and bonus...on the overriding KPIs that ultimately affect the health of your business. CAC [total cost of acquisition/time/$], LTV [Lifetime Value] and NPS [Net Promoter Score] are our top 3.  

Just a few ideas to kick off this week of spectacular New England weatha' as we drill down on the final two weeks of the quarter!   Have a wonderful week selling!

It's time to begin your business planning for what lies ahead in 2026.

Think about taking a day out in October to tune up your business and sales plans.  Here's our free how-to ebooks for a few ideas:

"Writing the Winning Sales Plan"
"Writing the Winning Business Plan"
"Writing the Winning Marketing Plan"
"The Marketing of Me"

We outline ideas on structure, models, process funnels, productivity tools and how to recruit, hire and onboard the best people.  A few hands-on guides for real managers written by real managers with their fingers in the dirt.  

Connect with me any time at jack@derbymanagement.com and let's discuss your own 2026 planning!