The worst marketing advice I still follow

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Here’s a piece of advice...

Don’t take my advice.

Actually, don’t take anyone’s advice.

Not your mentor’s.
Not your coach’s.
Not even your own.

Because when it comes to building offers, writing copy, launching campaigns — none of us really know what’s going to hit.

We think we do.
We’ve got educated guesses.
We’ve got indicators based on experience, past data, proven frameworks, and years of pattern recognition.

But the truth?

The market decides.
And it doesn’t care about your gut feeling.

Let’s break it down.

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Over the years, I’ve worked with some of the sharpest marketers, founders, copywriters, and media buyers around.

And I’ve seen this play out more times than I can count:

The campaign you’re convinced will crush it?
Sometimes flops.

The one you threw together last minute, almost didn’t send, barely edited?
Ends up outperforming everything else that quarter.

It’s humbling.
It’s frustrating.
And it’s the reality we live in.

Because the market doesn’t care about how confident you are.
It doesn’t care how many hours you spent tweaking the design or fine-tuning the CTA.
It doesn’t care how “certain” you were.

The only thing it listens to is value, and it speaks back in dollars.

That’s why the best advice I’ve ever received, and the only one I’ve seen hold up at every level, is this:

Ship the campaign.
Watch what happens.
Then decide what to do next.

Until it’s in front of real people…
You’re not getting real answers.

You’re just running simulations in your head.
You’re crafting for a market that doesn’t even know your message exists yet.

Now don’t get it twisted; I’m not saying we should be reckless or careless.

Of course we want to put our best efforts forward.
We want to use strategies that have worked.
We want to stack the odds in our favor with great copy, sharp angles, clean design, and smart targeting.

That’s just good marketing.

But no matter how smart the strategy is, or how confident you feel, if it hasn’t been tested in the wild?

It’s still just a guess.

And that’s where so many marketers go wrong.

They stay in “planning mode.”
They tweak endlessly.
They delay launch after launch because “it’s not ready yet.”

Meanwhile… someone else is already shipping.
Already collecting real-world feedback.
Already learning.

And that’s the kicker — the part too many overlook:

Every time you test, you learn something.

Even when it flops, it gives you clarity.
Even when it underperforms, it teaches you.
And when it works?

Now you’ve got proof.
Now you’ve got traction.
Now you know where to double down.

Testing is how you find the truth.
And that truth is what separates the good from the great.

So why do most marketers still hesitate?

They chase perfection.
They tinker too long.
They ask five people for input.
They rewrite the subject line a dozen times.
They show it to their mastermind group and talk themselves out of it.

And while they’re still editing?

Someone else is already scaling.

Want to know how to spot a real pro?

They don’t overthink.
They launch.
They listen to the market.

They don’t ask, “Is this perfect?”
They ask, “What worked?”
They don’t get attached to being right — they get obsessed with finding what works.

And that’s why they win.

I’ve had campaigns I almost didn’t send end up pulling in five figures in a weekend.

I’ve had “sure thing” launches that bombed so hard, I was embarrassed to look at the metrics.

So I stopped pretending to know.
I started testing.

And I started learning — fast.

Yes — get feedback.
Yes — study the greats.
Yes — use what’s been proven.

But remember this:

Feedback isn’t fact.
Only money is.

The market will always give you the clearest answer — if you’re brave enough to ask.

So if you’ve got something sitting in drafts…
If you’re halfway through a build…
If you’re tweaking instead of launching…

Let this be your permission slip:

Send it.
Test it.
Learn from it.

Whether it wins or loses, you’ll come out smarter.

And that’s how you get better.

Cheers,
The InBoXer Team