You approved the budget.
Your team launched campaigns.
Traffic went up, leads came in.
It all looked promising.
But sales growth? Still flat.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. The problem isn’t effort or budget. It’s that marketing is running as scattered activities instead of one connected system.
This is common when marketing is viewed as a necessary expense instead of a growth engine.
When Marketing Feels Like a Money Pit
What the giants do
Companies like Sherwin-Williams and Trex protect their marketing as a budgeted operating line — reviewed, measured, and optimized alongside production and sales. That’s how they preserve growth, even under market pressure.
The Cost of Disconnected Marketing
When marketing operates without a system, three things happen:
1
Reactive campaigns chase the latest idea instead of following a growth strategy
2
Misalignment between marketing, sales, and production slows results
3
Measurement drifts toward vanity metrics instead of revenue outcomes
Why Marketing Feels Like a Cost Center
The numbers tell the story. Manufacturing marketing budgets dropped from 8.5% to 6.7% of revenue in just one year, according to Gartner. For a $10 million manufacturer, that’s $180,000 less to work with while still needing the same growth results.
Meanwhile, Content Marketing Institute research shows most manufacturing marketers rate their strategies as only “moderately effective.” Fewer than one in five call them “very effective.”
When you combine shrinking budgets with mediocre results, the pattern becomes clear: leadership sees marketing as a cost to control, not an investment to optimize. Budgets get cut, results stagnate further, and the cycle repeats.
Red Flags That You’re Running Without a System:
- No documented, repeatable strategy that survives budget cycles
- Campaigns run in isolation from sales and production
- Dealer co-op spending runs disconnected from certified contractor programs
- Product launches happen without coordinating dealer inventory and training
- Metrics focus on clicks or traffic—not qualified leads or revenue
- Dealers or distributors aren’t part of the campaign handoff process
Marketing Plan vs. Marketing System
Here’s the shift:
A plan outlines what to do.
A system ensures you do what works — and keeps improving it.
Plan
Static document
System
Living, adaptive process
Example
Plan: Annual strategy locked in January
System: Monthly pivots when dealer inventory or market conditions shift
Plan
Outlines what to do
System
Ensures you do what works
Example
Plan: Run digital ads for spring season
System: Test ad audiences, measure lift, double down on what converts
Plan
Reviewed annually
System
Measured & adjusted monthly
Example
Plan: Quarterly performance reviews
System: Weekly dashboards showing lead quality and dealer follow-up rates
Plan
Separate from sales/ops
System
Integrated with sales & ops
Example
Plan: Marketing launches campaign in March
System: Marketing, sales, and production coordinate spring inventory, dealer training, and consumer campaigns to hit market together
How big brands think
James Hardie integrates marketing leadership with product and sales at the executive level — so campaigns are planned with supply and demand in the same conversation.
Why act now?
While you’re waiting for next quarter’s budget meeting, competitors are capturing market share with retail media networks and certified contractor programs that your buyers expect.
- Competitors won’t wait for your budget cycle
- Every week compounds wasted spend
- Regional demand spikes can’t be recovered later
- ROI proof now protects next year’s budget
- Small system fixes this quarter can free funds for growth
Anatomy of a Growth Marketing System
The most successful systems—whether at a $10M or $250M company — share a few components you won’t find in a plan alone:
Constraint Diagnosis
Identify the single biggest barrier to growth before spending more
Leadership Support & Alignment
Give CEOs and CMOs the clarity, data, and peer perspective to make stronger, faster growth decisions
Continuous Strategic Iteration
Strategy isn’t fixed for the year; it adapts monthly based on data and market changes
Real-Time Metrics
Weekly reporting surfaces issues before they cost you a quarter
Integrated Execution
Translate your strategy into coordinated campaigns, dealer programs, and sales tools that match production capacity and customer demand
Budget Protection Through Proof
ROI data defends investment when other departments face cuts
What Happens Without a System
Without a marketing system, good intentions turn into expensive problems:
Unqualified lead surges bury your sales team
Example: Your digital campaign drives 200 leads, but most are tire-kickers or price shoppers. Your sales team burns hours filtering junk leads instead of closing real opportunities—costing you both immediate sales and long-term morale.
Dealer dead-ends kill marketing-generated opportunities
Example: You spend $15,000 driving homeowners to find local dealers, but those dealers don’t have product in stock or fail to follow up quickly. The lead dies, the customer goes elsewhere, and your marketing spend evaporates.
Product launches flop despite great creative
Example: Your new line gets beautiful photography and compelling copy, but it never reaches the right audiences because there’s no coordinated media buy. Meanwhile, your biggest competitor’s inferior product captures market share with targeted retail media campaigns.
Your certified contractor network goes dormant
Example: You have 150 certified installers who could be selling your premium products, but they never hear about new promotions in time to use them. They default to recommending whatever’s top-of-mind—usually your competitor’s products.
These are bigger issues than operational hiccups. Each one burns cash, frustrates customers, and hands market share to competitors who run tighter systems.
The cost of misalignment
Mohawk Industries invests heavily in co-op advertising with dealers. Without a system, those dollars risk going to disconnected local campaigns that don’t reinforce the brand—or convert.
Myth vs. Reality
Myth
Marketing just needs more budget to work.
Reality
Without a system, more money only accelerates waste. The right system often improves results before increasing spend.
Why Assess Your Marketing Now —
and How to Do It
Before you can decide where to invest, you need to know how your marketing is really working.
That starts by answering two questions:
1. Do we have a marketing system, or are we running campaigns in isolation?
2. If we don’t have a system, should we consider transitioning to one?
Why to Assess
- A system ensures every marketing dollar supports business growth instead of being swallowed by disconnected tactics
- Slowdowns and gaps compound over time — delays in lead follow-up, weak targeting, or dealer misalignment cost more the longer they go unchecked
- Inconsistent measurement leaves you making decisions in the dark
How to Assess
Think about your last few campaigns: Did they connect to each other, or did each stand alone? If they didn’t connect, you likely missed opportunities to build momentum and lower your cost per lead
Ask yourself: Can I see, in one place, what’s working and what’s not? If you can’t, you’re making budget decisions with incomplete information, which risks overspending on low-return activities
Recall the last time a lead or sales opportunity fell through the cracks: Was it clear where the breakdown happened? If not, the same issue could be happening every week without you knowing—and costing you revenue
If those questions are hard to answer (or the answers are uncomfortable), it’s a sign your marketing isn’t functioning as a system.
With Fásnua, the transition starts with Rise — a business-goals-aligned marketing strategy that identifies your biggest constraints with a clear strategy to remove them.
A marketing plan might outline what to do — but a marketing system ensures you do what works, keeps it aligned with your goals, and makes it better over time.
Your Next Step
Find Your Growth Constraint
Whether you’re running marketing as individual campaigns or as a fully integrated system, identifying where leads and sales are getting stuck is the fastest path to improvement.
Growth Finder is a free assessment tool that highlights where your marketing breaks down — things like weak targeting, poor lead handoffs, measurement gaps, or execution issues — so you know where to focus first for the biggest growth impact.
See what’s blocking your growth in less than 5 minutes — absolutely free.