The Cookie-Cutter Trap in Marketing

We're living in a day and age where everyone is talking about AI, automation, templatizing, productizing, and doing more with less. Log on any social platform. Look at your inbox. The great majority of the content is telling you this is the path forward. A custom approach can sound like a risky choice in a world moving toward cookie-cutter, automated, templated solutions.

As everyone follows each other down this path, what is a marketing agency owned by two Gen X contrarians to do? Wayne Cox and I have been partners at The Marketing Squad for 15 of its 18 years, and we typically look for ways to go against the grain. Just to be different? Not really. To stand out? Yes.

We think a shift is coming. After all the sameness and AI-produced noise, people are going to crave authenticity again. They’ll want excellence—not just quality and accuracy (which AI can crank out all day). Great brands and great stories may be the only protection against the AI overthrow of the world. 😉

We know our prospective clients likely hear these things all the time:

• You need to find an agency that works in your niche
• You need a provider that knows your space
• Everyone works with this agency in our industry

I’ve seen it for 18 years in all different types of industries. Some of our greatest success stories have been helping businesses move away from the templated boiler-plate website they couldn’t update… and it turns out they didn’t even own.

For our clients in the cookie cutter world we often see the following:

• Websites that look like every other business they compete with
• Evergreen social content shared by 30 different companies around the country
• SEO and ad management using the same keywords as their competition

It creates a race to the bottom in quality, in the famous words of Seth Godin. It creates a race to the top of the price range fighting for ad space.

And eventually, they hit a wall — because businesses can’t stand out and compete against one another while using the same strategies. It’s not intuitive.

I coach high school softball and travel ball, and this is one of those things that’s really obvious in sports—so let me bring it over to marketing. 

If I coach two softball teams at the same time and know them both very intimately, and if we do play each other, we may play a never-ending tied game. The offense will know the defense’s tendencies, and the pitching/defense will know the offensive approach and weaknesses. You’d expect this. After all, I’m using the same playbook.

Now say I coach 8 teams using the same signal cards, the same defensive and pitching calls, in the same tournament. Talent and execution may win out, but it won’t be the strategy or gameplan. This issue just compounds with more teams — or more companies, in my example.

Where does this model work? In a franchise system, it can work at times because the different offices are not competing and are using the lessons they learn to help others in different geographies.

This is one reason why we are exclusive with our partner clients, and don’t go down the street to work with their competition. And trust me, we get the requests.

The incentive to get lazy with the templated cookie-cutter approach is high. We see lots of “set it and forget it” strategies from agencies that just don’t drive results beyond awareness. Our clients assume awareness is the minimum threshold for success and are looking for more, like lead generation and sales/revenue growth. We’re held accountable for winning, and our team is wired that way.

Every agency may start off with good intentions of giving you unique strategies, content, and creative. However, eventually things get hard. Like Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And the marketing industry — heck, business in general — will punch you in the mouth… and maybe other places too… from time to time. 🙂

Once the pain comes (and it will), the conveyor belt of sameness begins. The hamster wheel of content. The path of least resistance on the website calls-to-action. “Contact us.” “Submit form.”

Then the questions arise:

• What are we paying for?
• Are we getting results?
• Can we measure this?
• What are they doing beyond the standard things (social, SEO, ads, email)?

That’s usually when we enter the conversation.

If you’re there right now, you don’t have to be for long. You don’t need a new vendor—you need a better playbook. Download our free guide, Don’t Settle for Half-Baked Marketing, and use it as your reset button.

Then, if you want help running it, we’re nimble and quick to act. Let’s connect.