Systems · 5 min read
The missing middle in most marketing
Businesses tend to have strategy at the top and activity at the bottom. The gap between them is where results disappear.
Most businesses I meet have two things: a rough sense of where they want to go, and a lot of activity. Posts go out. Emails get sent. Someone runs a campaign. What is usually missing is the layer in between, the bit that decides which activity supports which objective and how you would know if it worked.
That middle layer is unglamorous. It looks like a clear objective, two or three metrics that matter, a CRM that actually reflects the pipeline, and a calendar that connects work to outcomes. It is not a fifty-page deck. It is closer to one page you can argue with.
When the middle is missing, everything becomes a matter of opinion. Should we be on TikTok? Should we redesign the site? Without a system, the loudest voice wins, and the answer changes every quarter.
When the middle exists, decisions get quicker and cheaper. You can say no to a channel without a debate, because the objective already rules it out. You can spend more on the thing that is working, because you can see it working.
Building that layer is usually the first job I do, and it is rarely the thing a business asks for. But it is the thing that makes everything after it easier.