The Marketing Industrial Complex
Bring Your Wallet
Modern marketing has a dirty secret: it’s built to extract as much money from you as possible before you see any results.
Agencies, platforms, “experts,” and tools all promise the world—strategy, scale, brand love, hockey-stick growth—but what you often get is a confusing invoice, a bloated tech stack, and no real pipeline.
Welcome to the Marketing Industrial Complex.
1. Everyone’s Selling You the Cure—After Giving You the Disease
Platforms tank your organic reach, then offer paid promotion to “boost” your content.
Agencies charge for “strategy decks” that you’ll never use.
Tools that promised to make marketing easier? Now you need another tool just to manage the tools.
It’s all part of the same machine.
Google pushes you into Performance Max.
Meta inflates your reach with impressions that don’t convert.
Everyone wants a monthly retainer.
No one guarantees results.
2. Marketing Spend ≠ Marketing Strategy
Just because you’re spending money doesn’t mean you’re doing marketing.
A billboard isn’t a strategy.
Hiring a freelancer and giving them zero direction isn’t a strategy.
Paying for 14 subscriptions and not using any of them? Still not a strategy.
The Marketing Industrial Complex thrives on this confusion. It feeds off people who throw money at problems instead of stepping back and asking:
What are we actually trying to do here?
3. The Most Expensive Marketing Is the Kind That Doesn’t Work
Bad marketing isn’t just ineffective—it’s expensive.
You’ll waste:
Time chasing the wrong leads.
Budget boosting content no one wants.
Headspace managing people who can’t explain what they’re even doing.
Meanwhile, the people selling you the dream? They get paid no matter what.
Be Skeptical, Be Strategic
The Marketing Industrial Complex wants you to spend first, think later.
Your job is to flip that equation.
Lead with clarity.
Invest in what’s proven.
Track what matters.
And don’t be afraid to say, “No thanks” to the next shiny pitch.
Because in this game, if you don’t know what you’re doing, someone else will happily take your money.
