Businesses and marketers in the Caribbean are at a crossroads. Companies are struggling to see tangible results from their marketing efforts, while marketers are often unable to demonstrate clear business impact. This disconnect has led to wasted resources, ineffective campaigns, and a cycle of frustration on both sides.

The truth is that businesses are failing marketers, and marketers are failing businesses—but for different reasons. If both parties do not evolve, companies will continue to struggle with digital transformation, and marketing will remain an underutilized tool rather than a revenue driver.

This article will break down the critical ways in which businesses and marketers are failing each other, and more importantly, what both sides can do to fix these issues.

How Businesses Are Failing Marketers

Many businesses in the Caribbean struggle to see meaningful results from their marketing efforts, not necessarily because marketing itself doesn’t work, but because their business structures and strategies are not set up for success in today’s digital world. A lack of digital transformation, poor hiring practices, and unrealistic expectations all contribute to this failure. Here’s how businesses are failing their marketing teams:

1. Businesses Are Not Evolving for the Digital Age

Many Caribbean businesses still operate with outdated business models and have failed to integrate digital-first strategies. Budget constraints often prevent businesses from experimenting with digital marketing, keeping them reliant on traditional methods. In Trinidad and Tobago, over 15% of advertising revenue has already shifted to big tech platforms (from Columbia Journalism Review: Disrupting Journalism), making competition even fiercer for local businesses.

Businesses that focus on digital transformation—including better digital infrastructure, customer data management, and e-commerce—see higher ROI on digital marketing efforts. Those investing in CRMs, automation tools, and digital analytics can track their marketing impact more effectively and improve decision-making.

2. The Disconnect Between Marketing and Revenue

Most businesses are not e-commerce ready, which means they cannot track how digital marketing contributes to sales. Even those that have CRM systems often do not know how to use them strategically to measure customer journeys, optimize marketing campaigns, and increase conversions. Instead, businesses focus on vanity metrics like likes and shares rather than meaningful KPIs such as lead generation, conversion rates, and revenue growth.

Many Caribbean businesses also struggle with measuring ROI, leading to skepticism about digital marketing’s effectiveness. Without Google Analytics, CRM systems, or proper conversion tracking, businesses cannot assess what’s working and what’s not. Proper infrastructure allows businesses to understand which digital channels drive sales and where to allocate resources for maximum ROI.

3. Misaligned Hiring and Underutilization of Global Talent

Many businesses hire digital marketers without fully understanding their skill sets, leading to job roles that combine multiple disciplines into one overwhelming position. Instead of leveraging freelancers or specialists globally, companies try to force one person to handle social media, SEO, email marketing, paid advertising, and content creation—often resulting in mediocre performance across the board.

4. Companies Are Holding Onto Legacy Employees Without Upskilling

A major issue in Caribbean businesses is holding onto employees who have not updated their skills to match the modern marketing landscape. Even when these employees take courses or earn certifications, they often lack practical experience, meaning they cannot execute strategies effectively. Businesses need to know when to upskill existing employees and when to bring in new talent to ensure long-term success.

5. Businesses Expect Magic Instead of Long-Term Growth

Many businesses expect instant results and an explosion of sales overnight from marketing efforts. This unrealistic expectation puts pressure on marketers to deliver fast wins, often pushing them to focus only on social media and viral content rather than sustainable growth strategies. Instead of investing in long-term customer acquisition, proper lead generation, and revenue tracking, businesses often chase trends that deliver vanity metrics rather than meaningful business growth.

6. The Hidden Cost of Underqualified Marketing Teams (Personal Experience Story)

In my consultations with corporate and enterprise-level businesses across the Caribbean, a common theme arises:

• Businesses have internal marketing teams, some well-staffed and some understaffed.
• After mapping out their strategy, they ask, “So, Keron…who is supposed to execute these plans? Because we don’t have the expertise internally.”
• This results in two outcomes: either shrinking the strategy to fit the team’s limited skill set, or paying additional money to external consultants to execute the plan.
• Ultimately, this leads to double spending—hiring an in-house team that lacks execution skills and then hiring external support to fill in the gaps.

Businesses must recognize the true cost of underqualified teams and ensure they are hiring or training staff to execute their marketing strategies effectively.

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How Marketers Are Failing Businesses

Just as businesses fail their marketing teams, many marketers are also failing the businesses they serve. Too often, the focus is placed on creativity and visibility rather than data-driven strategies that contribute to business growth. Marketers in the Caribbean are frequently misguided by short-term tactics, lack hands-on experience, and struggle to tie their efforts to revenue. Here are some of the key ways marketers are falling short:

1. Over-Prioritizing Creativity Over Data-Driven Strategy

Many Caribbean marketers focus heavily on the creative side of marketing but have not developed their skills in data research and analysis. Because of this gap, they cannot create strategic, data-driven content that aligns with business goals. Most marketing efforts in Caribbean companies do not start with research-based insights gathered from audience behavior, competitor analysis, and market trends. Instead, content is often created based on intuition or what is aesthetically appealing, without real data supporting the decision-making process.

Additionally, the research that many marketers do tends to focus on trending sounds, trending hooks, and best-performing viral content. While these elements may increase visibility, they do not necessarily contribute to business growth. There is more emphasis on trying to go viral than on developing solid long-term strategies that build sustainable customer relationships and generate consistent revenue.

Marketers must shift from short-term, viral-driven tactics to long-term, data-backed strategies. Utilizing Google Analytics, keyword research tools, customer segmentation analysis, and CRM insights can help them build a content strategy that attracts, nurtures, and converts leads into paying customers.

2. Over-Reliance on Social Media

Many marketers in the region specialize almost exclusively in social media marketing, neglecting other essential digital marketing channels such as SEO, email marketing, paid ads, and conversion rate optimization. As a result, businesses place all their marketing focus on social media, missing opportunities to diversify and maximize revenue streams through multiple digital touchpoints.

This over-reliance often leads to a misguided perception that social media is the only way to grow a brand online, even though many businesses fail to convert engagement into sales without an integrated digital strategy.

3. Lack of Practical Experience

Many marketers have certifications but lack hands-on experience executing real-world digital strategies. This leads to:

• Poor execution of marketing campaigns.
• Limited ability to experiment with data-driven decision-making.
• A failure to understand how digital marketing directly impacts business growth.

For example, a marketer may claim expertise in SEO but has never built or ranked a website. Or they may push social media strategies without ever having managed an e-commerce business, failing to recognize regional limitations in social commerce features.

4. Failure to Show ROI and Business Impact

Because many marketers do not fully understand how marketing ties into business growth, they struggle to showcase how their work contributes to revenue generation. Without proper tracking, businesses remain skeptical about digital marketing’s return on investment.

To truly demonstrate ROI, marketers must focus on measurable business outcomes such as:

• Revenue Growth: Businesses need a system in place to track how marketing efforts lead to direct sales.
  • Tools Needed: Google Analytics, e-commerce tracking (Shopify, WooCommerce), CRM software (HubSpot, Salesforce).
  • Flow: A potential customer sees an ad → Clicks to visit a website → Engages with content → Signs up for a free resource or offer → Receives targeted email or retargeted ad → Makes a purchase.
  • Key Metrics to Track: Conversion rate per campaign, cost per acquisition, return on ad spend (ROAS), and average order value (AOV).
• Lead Generation: Many businesses struggle because they do not have a structured way to generate and nurture leads.
  • Tools Needed: Website or landing pages (Unbounce, Leadpages), email marketing platforms (Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign), and lead capture forms (Typeform, HubSpot).
  • Flow: A user sees an ad or organic post → Clicks to a landing page → Fills out a form for a free resource or consultation → Business follows up via automated emails or direct outreach.
  • Key Metrics to Track: Number of leads generated, lead-to-customer conversion rate, cost per lead (CPL).
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Businesses must measure how much it costs to acquire a customer compared to their revenue contribution.
  • Tools Needed: Google Ads, Meta Ads, CRM software, attribution tracking tools (Google Tag Manager, UTMs).
  • Flow: A company invests in paid ads → Prospective customers click the ad → Navigate through a funnel (landing pages, emails, sales call) → Make a purchase.
  • Key Metrics to Track: Cost per customer acquisition, customer lifetime value (CLV), and return on investment (ROI).

Instead of relying on vanity metrics like likes and shares, marketers should use these structured processes and tools to connect marketing performance to business revenue. By doing so, they can move beyond surface-level engagement and provide tangible evidence of marketing’s impact on the company’s bottom line.

5. Underqualified Marketers Lead to Double Spending

Since many marketers cannot execute advanced strategies, businesses often have to hire external consultants to fix or complete work that their internal teams could not handle. This results in wasted time, duplicated expenses, and inefficiencies in executing marketing strategies.

Ultimately, businesses pay twice—once for an in-house team that lacks expertise and then again for external professionals who must redo or complete the work.

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How Businesses Can Fix These Issues

1. Invest in Digital Business Education
   • Business owners and decision-makers must educate themselves on how digital marketing drives revenue.
   • They need to learn how CRM, e-commerce, automation, and analytics contribute to business growth.
2. Build the Right Marketing Team
   • Clearly define specialized marketing roles instead of hiring generalists.
   • Use a combination of in-house talent and global freelancers for a more effective and cost-efficient approach.
   • Upskill employees where necessary and replace outdated roles when needed.
3. Modernize Operations with the Right Technology
   • Implement CRM systems, e-commerce platforms, and data analytics tools to track marketing success.
   • Shift focus from vanity metrics to business-driven KPIs like sales conversions, customer lifetime value, and ROI.

How Marketers Can Fix These Issues

1. Become Practitioners, Not Just Theorists
   • Gain hands-on experience in key areas like SEO, paid advertising, conversion tracking, and automation.
   • Build personal projects to test strategies before implementing them for clients.
2. Expand Beyond Social Media
   • Learn and integrate other digital marketing channels like email marketing, SEO, PPC, and content marketing.
   • Use data to drive marketing decisions instead of relying on gut instinct.
3. Learn to Demonstrate ROI
   • Marketers must understand how their efforts translate into business success.
   • Use attribution models, lead tracking, and analytics to prove the impact of marketing campaigns.

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The disconnect between Caribbean businesses and marketers is not just about ineffective campaigns or slow results—it’s about a fundamental misunderstanding of how marketing should function in today’s digital landscape. Marketers are failing to align their efforts with business objectives, often focusing on visibility rather than revenue-driven strategies.

Businesses need to modernize their approach, invest in the right tools, and hire or train the right people. Marketers need to step beyond social media, leverage data-driven strategies, and prove their impact through measurable ROI.

By committing to continuous learning, adaptation, and strategic implementation, businesses and marketers can finally break free from the cycle of ineffective marketing and unlock new levels of success.

If you need help mapping out what your business needs to succeed in digital marketing, developing a plan to upskill your marketing team, or training your team for better execution—feel free to reach out and let’s have a discussion...Contact Me.