A Clown Without A Circus
A Clown Without A Circus
A Clown Without A Circus – Charles Snyder Raw #69. Since the videos I am making in this series are freestyle, I’m never sure what I am going to say. Or where the dialog will lead to by the end of each video. But every so often I drop a golden nugget about marketing as I did here today.

Sad clown face… :(
Anyway, today I am discussing some astonishing information that is revealed by a report I just saw. Specifically, I am referring to the following report released in late April 2018: WordStream State of the Digital Marketing Agency in 2018.
First, a few caveats
As with any kind of stats or reports, you must keep things in perspective. The big one here is that WordStream focuses mainly on PPC or Pay-Per-Click advertising. But, as you will see when you browse that report, most of the PPC agencies they are catering to also offer other services. Such as social media marketing, web design and mowing your lawn.
Regardless, there are two key factors that I am focusing on with this report, in my article and video today:
- Of the agencies surveyed, 83.4% spend less than 50% of their time working on PPC ads.
- And yet more than 1/3 of those agencies (37.3%) state their biggest challenge is getting new customers.
Source: WordStream
That blows my mind!
So WordStream doesn’t come right out and say this, but what I get from this report is that 1 in 3 agencies don’t do much if any marketing of their own. I am further convinced of this glaring fact later in the report with this fact:
- Of the agencies surveyed, 50.8% claim their main source of new customers is referrals.
So in other words half of all agencies are simply order-takers. Seriously, if a business relies mainly on referrals, there’s little or no sales and marketing going on. And these are businesses trying to convince you to give them money to bring you more customers.
Anyway, those key factors form the basis of my video today. So my epiphany is that running a business without marketing is kind of like being a clown without a circus. Maybe that’s why there are so many sad-faced clowns? And marketers.
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Charles is the owner of C. E. Snyder Marketing LLC. His background includes 30+ years in the fire service. Since 1999, he has also become a published author and a public speaker from 2004 on. He is widely respected as the “go-to” guy for Digital Marketing, websites, and SEO, recently being recognized with the 2020 Best of Lancaster in Digital Marketing Award.
Charles is also known as “The Marketing Ninja” and is a serial entrepreneur. His favorite quote is “Make Stuff Happen!” Also, his personal interests include spending time with Ann, his fiancee, playing the occasional video game, and growing mutant eyebrow hairs since getting on the wrong side of 50 years old.