Your Marketing Strategy is Too Complicated. Here’s the 3-Step Fix.

Hi there,

I had coffee last week with a founder who was visibly stressed. She was trying to explain her marketing plan to me, pulling up a complex flowchart on her laptop with ten different channels, a web of automation, and a budget that was making her finance person lose sleep.

She was doing everything she’d been told to do. She had a TikTok channel, a Google Ads budget, an SEO agency on retainer, and a plan for five different social media platforms.

But she wasn't seeing real growth. All she had was a burned-out team, a shrinking bank account, and a deep-seated anxiety that she was doing it all wrong.

As I listened, I realised her story is the one I hear every single week from founders across the MENA region. We’ve been led to believe that growth comes from complexity— that the more channels we’re on and the more complex our funnels are, the more successful we’ll be.

I’m here to tell you that’s a lie. Your competitive edge isn't a more complex funnel. It's radical clarity.

There’s a famous quote from the department store pioneer John Wanamaker: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

For today’s startups, I think it’s even worse. Many founders are wasting 80% of their budget and effort on channels that will never work for them, simply because they’re chasing noise instead of focusing on what truly matters.

This hit home for me recently with a new client here in Sharjah.

This founder came to me with a similar problem to the one I described above. He runs a high-level corporate services firm, and he was about to sign a massive contract with a marketing agency to run advertising campaigns and an expensive SEO program.

On the surface, it sounded logical. But I asked him to pause and walk me through his business. His clients were oversees C-level executives, looking to settle in the UAE. Deals were worth 5 to 6 figures and were built on deep trust and personal relationships.

We quickly realised the problem: he wasn't selling a simple SaaS tool you could buy with a credit card. He was selling a high-stakes partnership.

The answer wasn't a better ad campaign; it was a better relationship-builder. We scrapped the complex agency plan, and instead, I geared him to hire his first senior Business Development Specialist. He needed a human, not a bigger ad budget.

That single moment of clarity saved him tens of thousands of dirhams and completely refocused his company's growth trajectory. And it all came from answering three simple questions.

Also read: The founder's back to school essentials: 3 marketing trends from summer 2025 to Win Q4

My time at Google taught me that real growth doesn't come from being everywhere. It comes from being in the right places, at the right time, with the right message. This framework is the fastest way to get there.

Before you spend another dollar on a new channel, I challenge you to answer these three questions with brutal honesty.

I’m not talking about the vague "Marketing Mary" persona you downloaded from a template.

Who is the one person with the authority and the budget to say "yes" to you?

For a school, is it the Head of Admissions or the Principal? For an EdTech product, is it the Head of Department or the CTO?

Be ruthlessly specific. Write down their actual job title. This single decision dictates everything that follows.

Your product might have ten amazing features, but your buyer only cares about the one painful, expensive, urgent problem they are trying to solve right now. A great go-to-market strategy doesn't solve everything for everyone; it solves the most urgent thing for a specific someone.

What is the one thing that keeps them up at night, the problem that could get them a promotion if they solved it?

That’s your message.

Don't just say "social media" or "industry blogs." That's lazy. Get specific.

Which one LinkedIn group do they genuinely trust and participate in? Which one industry conference do they never, ever miss? Which single newsletter do they actually open and read every week?

Your ideal customers are already gathered somewhere, listening to people they trust. Your entire strategy should be to show up in that exact place and add value.

And that’s it.

The answers to these three questions are your entire go-to-market strategy. Everything else is just noise.

To your growth,

Ahlem

P.S. I know these questions seem simple, but applying them with true objectivity can be challenging when you're deep in the trenches of your own startup. For my newsletter subscribers, I'm offering a special 10% discount on my GTM Audits for Q4 2025. If you'd like an expert eye to help you find your own radical clarity, just reply to this email with "GTM Audit" and I'll send you the details.

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