{"id":11075,"date":"2026-05-27T18:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=11075"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:45:20","slug":"the-5-myths-of-marketing-leverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=11075","title":{"rendered":"The 5 myths of marketing leverage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An<\/div>\n

Marketing exists to create movement \u2014 from disinterest to curiosity, from curiosity to confidence, and from confidence to action, then hopefully, evangelism. Leverage is the ability to create that movement.<\/p>\n

I first started thinking about leverage through a graduate school negotiation case study taught by Prof. Ned Wellman. In the case study, a man named Bill hears that his city plans to spend $450,000 demolishing a beautiful 125-year-old building downtown. <\/p>\n

Bill asks a simple question: \u201cWhat if we could save the building for less than that?\u201d He convinces the city not to demolish the building, secures incentives, and lines up a commercial buyer. At the end of the deal, he saves the building and pockets six figures.<\/p>\n

The story proves it doesn\u2019t \u201ctake money to make money.\u201d It takes leverage. For marketers, leverage changes everything.\u00a0No amount of ad spend, content production, brand awareness, or funny one-liners can compensate for a lack of leverage. Believe me. I\u2019ve tried.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, most marketing teams don\u2019t realize they lack leverage until it\u2019s too late and too expensive to change. They\u2019ve confused things that look like leverage with the real thing.<\/p>\n

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5 false signals of marketing leverage<\/h2>\n

Here are some things I\u2019ve seen marketing teams confuse with leverage.<\/p>\n

False leverage 1: Complexity masquerading as clarity<\/h3>\n

Some teams have convinced themselves they\u2019re explaining things simply when they\u2019re not. At that moment, it\u2019s easy to see the customer as the problem. The real problem is that marketing is too familiar with the product for clarity and assumes customers are just as familiar.<\/p>\n

I once worked with a company in generative AI. In their minds, their product was the simplest thing in the world. It took me three calls with the founder to understand what they actually did. Their prospects were giving up long before call three.<\/p>\n

False leverage 2: Data masquerading as understanding<\/h3>\n

Marketers live in a fast-paced, data-driven world. But the more available data becomes, the easier it is to mistake observation for understanding. That\u2019s like thinking you understand relationships because you attended a speed-dating event.<\/p>\n

False leverage 3: Experience masquerading as market understanding<\/h3>\n

If you were in sales in the \u201980s and \u201990s, you used ACT! contact management software. Then Salesforce and HubSpot arrived and left them in the dust.<\/p>\n

Success convinced ACT! they understood what customers would always want when they only understood what customers wanted then.<\/p>\n

False leverage 4: Brand awareness masquerading as trust<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve watched campaigns go viral for years, and I\u2019ve learned the hard way that being noticed isn\u2019t the same as being trusted. Awareness can get a brand attention \u2014 even make it memorable. But attention and movement are two different things. People move when they trust you understand their world.<\/p>\n

False leverage 5: Cleverness masquerading as persuasion<\/h3>\n

If there\u2019s one thing marketers love, it\u2019s a good line. But I\u2019ve noticed there are a lot of funny ads that don\u2019t boost sales. The problem is when cleverness becomes the goal.<\/p>\n

Clever ads get attention, but attention isn\u2019t movement. Marketing that moves people tends to say something true, sharp, or resonant enough that customers feel seen, perhaps a little exposed. That builds trust.<\/p>\n

How to build the raw materials of leverage<\/h2>\n

The tricky part about leverage is that it\u2019s wildly context-dependent. Marketers who can consistently move customers tend to obsess over understanding them \u2014 what they want, what they\u2019re afraid of, and the tradeoffs they\u2019re weighing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not trying to know the audience. They\u2019re studying customers the way a coach studies game film. They gather that understanding from a handful of places because no single system captures the full picture.<\/p>\n

Talk to customers<\/h3>\n

The best marketers I know spend a surprising amount of time talking to their customers. Those conversations often have a structure, like jobs-to-be-done, voice of customer, or CX mapping. The goal is to spot patterns in motivations and ideal outcomes that shape decisions, but are otherwise easy to miss. I\u2019m always amazed at what people reveal to someone who\u2019s curious enough to ask and patient enough to listen.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s more than surveys or personas. It\u2019s sitting in front of them, in person, and talking with them one-on-one. I\u2019ve seen major insights come from fewer than 15 customer interviews. One thing that\u2019s slipped me up is forgetting that frameworks are like GPS. They\u2019re helpful, but they\u2019re not always accurate. Best to keep your eyes on the road.<\/p>\n

Watch what people actually do<\/h3>\n

I used to think customer interviews were the \u201cend-all, be-all.\u201d I\u2019ve softened on that because I realized the picture they give is incomplete without seeing what customers actually do. The words are great, but behavior shows intent.<\/p>\n

People mean what they say, but there\u2019s usually a reason actions and words don\u2019t line up. That\u2019s why the marketers I\u2019ve seen develop unusually deep customer understanding don\u2019t stop at interviews. <\/p>\n

They pair them with close observation of what customers choose to do. They use tools like analytics, heat maps, product usage, and customer reviews to uncover what people struggle to articulate.<\/p>\n

Borrow other people\u2019s lives<\/h3>\n

Marketers who seem \u201clucky\u201d often have proximity to their customers. Their world overlaps with the customer\u2019s world enough to create intuition about what matters.<\/p>\n

Plumbers can understand HVAC technicians because their lives are similar. That kind of intuition gets harder when marketers have little firsthand exposure to the customer\u2019s world.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also learned that the same closeness that helps marketers understand customers can lull them into overconfidence. \u201cI am the customer\u201d sounds clever, but it can create insular thinking. One person is a data point, not the market.<\/p>\n

Listen to the people already talking to customers<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve always found it a little ironic how much big companies spend on understanding their customers while overlooking the people already talking with customers every day. Each department spends its days getting feedback from different parts of the customer experience, like the blind men and the elephant. Everyone experiences something true, but rarely sees the whole thing.<\/p>\n

Great ideas have come from a janitor, a frustrated sales rep, or a customer success manager who notices a pattern. The challenge usually isn\u2019t effort. It\u2019s stitching all those partial truths into a coherent picture of the customer.<\/p>\n

Stay curious<\/h3>\n

ACT! Software got comfortable being right. After all, they were right for 20 years. Why should Salesforce know the market better than them? They didn\u2019t realize their customer understanding has a short shelf life.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the marketers most able to create leverage treat customer understanding as temporary. They\u2019re always listening, testing assumptions, and staying curious after everyone else thinks they\u2019ve got it figured out.<\/p>\n

Making people move<\/h2>\n

Now, if you\u2019re still with me, the thing I\u2019m worried you\u2019ve taken from all of this is that understanding customers = leverage. It isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t become leverage until it\u2019s demonstrated, and customers recognize themselves in what is communicated. That\u2019s when trust forms, and people open up to moving. That\u2019s how Bill did it.<\/p>\n

Good marketing works the same way. It says, \u201cWe see you. We understand your pain. We can help.\u201d That\u2019s leverage \u2014 demonstrating understanding and building trust so another human being chooses to move.<\/p>\n

The post The 5 myths of marketing leverage<\/a> appeared first on MarTech<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marketing exists to create movement \u2014 from disinterest to curiosity, from curiosity to confidence, and from confidence to action, then hopefully, evangelism. Leverage is the ability to create that movement. I first started thinking about leverage through a graduate school negotiation case study taught by Prof. Ned Wellman. In the case study, a man named … <\/p>\n

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