Technological Fog and the Lost Skill of Connecting Dots

1-minute read

The skill of connecting dots in marketing has been completely eliminated with the advent of technology. Genuine curiosity has given way to lazily logging in to software and staring at a dashboard that tells a limited story at best—but most likely a false version of reality.

The idea that someone clicks on your ad, goes to a landing page, clicks your CTA, and does what you want them to is not how we—humans—behave.

What most likely happens is:

A stranger sees your ad.

Then they scroll on by.

Then they see it again.

Then they keep scrolling.

Then they see it again…again…

Then, over time, if your thing strikes some combination of cool + interesting + relevant they’ll do some research, go to your website, find some stuff out, and ask their peers about you.

And then, if everything passes the sniff test and your website is designed to be a sales tool that informs buyers and allows them to check all the necessary boxes before needing to engage in a conversation with a salesperson, they book a call to learn more.

That winding road of unpredictable wildness is buyer behavior.

Dashboards are where true marketing and the art of designing experiences that align with buyer behavior go to die.

Unfortunately, what we call "marketing" today is mostly dashboard gazing and exporting irrelevant data into spreadsheets as a CYA measure to pass up the chain.

It’s time that we loosen our dependence on tools, step out of the fog of digital scoreboards, and get back to being curious about how our buyer operates IRL.

— Nate

Head to LinkedIn and join the convo (or throw this post a Like).