Let's clear something up immediately: growth marketing isn't just "marketing with the word 'growth' in front of it". It's not

• Running more Facebook ads

• Hiring a "growth hacker" to do viral tricks

• Optimising your conversion funnel

• A/B testing everything

• Adding a referral program

Those can be tactics within growth marketing. But they're not growth marketing itself.

A lot of companies build websites like they’re designing a showroom. Beautiful visuals. Clever animations. Award-style layouts. And then… silence. Because a website isn’t a poster, it is a discovery engine.

Building a site for “creative visual effects” without SEO/GEO is like planting a small fledgling tree in the middle of the Amazon and expecting people to find it. You can’t rely on luck. You need pathways.

CEO: "We need better marketing. Our sales are flat. Our brand isn't breaking through." Me: "Tell me about your corporate communication strategy." CEO: "We don't really have one. We issue press releases when we have news. HR handles internal comms. We've got a LinkedIn page."

Me: "That's your problem." CEO: "But we need marketing. We need customers." Me: "And you won't get them without credible corporate communication."

Let's talk about the elephant in the room that most European business leaders are too afraid to name publicly. GDPR is killing small and medium enterprises. Not slowly. Not theoretically. Actually killing them.

I know this isn't a popular position. GDPR was sold as "privacy protection for citizens" and "levelling the playing field against Big Tech".

The reality? It's become a compliance nightmare that disproportionately hammers the very businesses it was supposed to protect

Every year, marketing decks promise the same thing. More creative ideas. More innovation. More bold campaigns.

Creativity is treated as the missing ingredient. It usually isn’t. Most organisations already have enough creativity; what they truly lack is courage.

People applaud concepts. They praise visuals. Originality is given great compliments.

But it is only courage that forces decisions.

Every few months, the same conversation appears. “We need more content.” “We need fresher ideas.”
“We need to post more.” So teams brainstorm. Calendars fill up. Formats multiply.

And nothing really changes. Engagement stays flat. Leads stay inconsistent. The brand still feels interchangeable. Most brands do not suffer from a content shortage. They suffer from a clarity deficit.