Marketing is Like Playing Wack-a-Mole
Created by Jeff Nelson using Gemini
If you’ve ever walked the midway at the Calgary Stampede, you know the drill.
You hand over a few dollars, grab the padded mallet, and step up to the Wack-a-Mole game. Suddenly, a plastic mole pops up. Whack! You hit it. Another appears on the far left. Whack! Then two at once. Whack! Whack!
Meanwhile, the noise of the midway is all around you. Lights flashing, people shouting, music blaring. It’s chaotic.
By the end of the game, you’re swinging wildly, slightly panicked, and wondering why you paid money to feel this stressed.
For a lot of business owners, marketing feels exactly the same way.
You get your website ranking on page one, and then Google rolls out another algorithm update. Whack!
You finally get comfortable with how customers search online, and suddenly AI tools like ChatGPT start changing that behaviour. Whack!
You optimize your Google Business Profile and start generating leads, and now your email follow-ups aren’t getting opened. Whack! Whack!
It never stops.
And if you’re reacting to every pop-up, you’re playing a game you cannot win.
The Problem with Reactive Marketing
Most mid-sized businesses aren’t failing because they aren’t working hard enough.
They’re failing because they’re playing defense.
Marketing gets treated as a series of disconnected problems:
Rankings dropped
Leads slowed down
Competitor launched something new
Someone said “you need to be on TikTok”
So the response is predictable. React. Adjust. Chase. Repeat.
The result is a scattered mix of tactics with no unifying strategy. Lots of activity. Very little traction.
More effort does not equal better results.
In Wack-a-Mole, swinging faster doesn’t help. It just makes you tired.
How to Step Away from the Machine
You don’t win this game by getting faster.
You win by refusing to play it.
That starts by shifting from reactive marketing to intentional marketing.
1. Lock in the Fundamentals
Before chasing trends, get the basics right.
For most local and mid-sized businesses, two things matter more than anything else:
How you show up on Google (especially your Google Business Profile)
How clearly your website communicates value
If those aren’t working, nothing else will compensate.
2. Simplify Your Scoreboard
You don’t need more data. You need better decisions.
Track only what connects to outcomes:
Qualified leads
Conversion rates
Revenue generated
Everything else is secondary.
If a metric doesn’t help you make a decision, it’s just noise.
3. Reduce Friction for the Customer
Good marketing feels effortless to the buyer.
It works like an automatic sliding door. It opens at the right moment, without confusion or resistance.
If your prospects have to work to understand you, find you, or take the next step, your marketing is creating friction.
And friction kills momentum.
4. Stop Doing It Alone
This is where most businesses get stuck.
Modern marketing is not one discipline. It’s a system:
Strategy, search, content, analytics, conversion.
Trying to manage it piecemeal is what creates the Wack-a-Mole effect in the first place.
That’s why we built the Anduro Alliance. Not to add more tactics, but to bring structure, coordination, and clarity to the entire system.
Stop Swinging. Start Thinking.
The next time a new marketing “issue” pops up, pause.
Ask a better question:
Is this part of a strategy, or just another mole?
Because most of the time, it’s just a distraction competing for your attention and your budget.
Marketing doesn’t have to feel chaotic.
When you stop reacting and start thinking in systems, everything changes:
Fewer surprises
Better decisions
More consistent growth
And most importantly…
You finally get to step away from the machine.