Everything seems to be “advanced” these days, doesn't it?

Normal stuff just doesn't cut the mustard any more. Everything has to be advanced, killer, controversial, surprising, hidden or game-changing somehow.

And it's understandable that people want to badge their stuff that way. After all, who wants to be seen buying the basic beginner's version of something?

We all like to think we're advanced, not beginners. Or more importantly, we all like other people to think we're advanced, not beginners.

The problem is that for most of us, the advanced level of most things we do won't help us. In fact, it'll hurt us.

I've seen many people trying to run before they can walk with their marketing. And I've done it myself too.

Trying a major product launch before you do a simple pilot with your existing customers.

Making a fancy video lead magnet instead of a text document.

Building complex “funnels” instead of simple email sequences.

In theory, more advanced marketing should get you better results. But it rarely does.

Firstly, it takes too much time for most of us to get advanced marketing up and running. Time we just don't have. So it doesn't get done or gets done very slowly.

Secondly, advanced marketing tends to be “set in stone” and difficult to change. If your audience doesn't react well to your free ebook you can quickly edit, tweak and try again. But it's a huge job to reshoot a video.

If you have simple email sequences then changing a few emails doesn't affect the sequence much. If you have a complex funnel you have to worry about which path each subscriber goes down, what emails they see, how to get them on the right path with the right emails, etc. A small change to a sequence in one place can have knock-on effects in completely different places in your funnel.

Finally, advanced marketing is simply too difficult for most of us to master. It tends to require a lot of knowledge and experience and detailed planning to get to work. Much better to be great at the basics that try something clever and fail.

Many times I've tried to implement complex marketing funnels to find they only performed a little better than the simple way I was doing things previously. All that increased effort simply wasn’t worth it.

Of course, if you're a big business with lots of people to work on your advanced marketing then go for it.

Or if you’ve already mastered the basics and are getting good results it could be time to upgrade your marketing.

But for most of us, simple is the best.