Sales brings in the revenue, along with Product developing what is sold. Marketing can't be a silo. It has to distill the messages that drive revenue into a compelling narrative and basis for content direction.

Most marketing is boring and is mentally discarded by the end user. The memorable stuff sticks out, because it's the exception. But stories stick, because we're ancestrally, neurologically tuned to them. At the root of every effective marketing program is a highly developed brand narrative.

Most content is haphazard. The sporadic email "blast", a sprinkle of social, an ongoing spray of website posts, some pay to play options that may or may not be worth the investment. By contrast, a solid campaign unites all marketing channels for an end-to-end message over a concerted time frame, instead of spreading a thin layer of many ideas at once.

Most of us are too close to our own firms to do messaging effectively. Powerful messaging is, above all, about the end-user (directly or indirectly) and unique to the brand. There's no generic messaging (excellent customer service, best in class, the first name in blah blah blah). It often requires someone from the outside to find the intimate points in the brand narrative that can stand on their own in a competitive market rife with noise.