In partnership with
The era of manual marketing ends this May!
Manual marketing had a good run.
But the teams winning right now aren't briefing, approving, and repeating. They're directing AI agents that execute the whole strategy for them.
The Agentic Marketing Summit (May 4–8) is a free, five-day event that shows you exactly how it works in practice. Not theory. Not a PDF checklist. Step-by-step insight to help you become an expert in AI marketing agents.
Hosted by 3x Inc 5000 founder Manick Bhan alongside the sharpest minds in the marketing world today.
The era of doing it yourself is over!
Good Morning,
I spent years pouring money into marketing that went nowhere. Hired an SEO. Then a Facebook ads guy. Then a TikTok agency. Then an email consultant. Then a YouTube guy. Six months in, no growth, nothing connected, money gone.
There's a name for this.
Random acts of marketing.
It kills more businesses than bad products do.
Think Big Minute #11
Most business owners have a graveyard of half-finished campaigns, dead newsletters, abandoned channels, and agency invoices.
A vague feeling that nothing is really working.
Because nothing is really working.
It's not a budget problem.
It's not a talent problem.
It's not even an execution problem.
There was never a plan in the first place.
A plan is not "we should do more SEO."
A plan is not "we need to be on TikTok."
A plan is not a list of channels you read about in a newsletter and felt guilty for not being on.
I ran my own businesses on random acts of marketing for years. Did some SEO. Ran some ads. Made some videos. Started some podcasts. Some of it produced. Most of it didn't. I couldn't tell you which was which because I wasn't tracking against anything.
A few months ago I sat down and built a real 12 month plan.
123 pages. Channel by channel. Objective by objective. Owner by owner. Quarterly milestones. Specific numbers.
The difference between before and after isn't subtle.
It's the difference between a business and a hobby with a logo.
Here's how to stop running random acts of marketing.
Pick one objective for the next 12 months. Not 5. Not 3. One. "Add 5,000 paying customers." "Hit $X MRR." "Grow the email list to 100k." It has a number and a date.
Pick the 3 channels that will carry that objective. Not 8. Three. The ones your buyer is actually on, not the ones you wish they were on. The rest die. They were dying anyway, you just hadn't noticed.
Define what "working" looks like on each channel before you start. Specific number, specific date. If the number doesn't show up by the date, the channel is wrong or the execution is wrong. Find out which.
Give every channel one owner. Not "the team." A name. If nobody's name is on it, nobody's doing it.
Run the channel for 6 months minimum before you judge it. Most operators kill channels at month 2. Channels need reps before they tell you anything. Enough reps is when more reps stop producing more results. Almost nobody ever gets there.
Review the plan once a month. Not daily. Not never. Monthly. What hit, what didn't, what changes. Write it down. The plan is alive or it's a PDF in a folder.
When something new gets pitched to you mid year, the answer is no. The new thing isn't the problem. The plan is the problem. Adding to it doesn't fix it. Finishing it does.
The reason most owners run random acts of marketing isn't that they don't know any of this.
It's that having a plan means you can be wrong on purpose.
You committed. The number is on paper. If it doesn't hit, that's on you.
Random acts let you stay vague.
Vague is comfortable.
Vague is also why you're stuck.
Pick the objective. Pick the channels. Pick the owners. Write it down.
Then run it for a year before you change a single thing.
Think Big.
The best marketing ideas come from marketers who live it. That’s what The Marketing Millennials delivers: real insights, fresh takes, and no fluff. Written by Daniel Murray, a marketer who knows what works, this newsletter cuts through the noise so you can stop guessing and start winning. Subscribe and level up your marketing game.
Gladly Connect Live '26. May 4–6 in Atlanta.
The room you want to be in. This is where CX leaders are tackling the hard AI questions and sharing what's actually working. For CX and ecommerce leaders. Atlanta, May 4–6. Space is limited — secure your spot now.