Marketing and sales initiatives are a company's lifeblood. Yet,the top leadership in many companies harbors serious doubts aboutthe effectiveness of such initiatives. The confidence level amongsome executives is so low that they're not sure it would make muchdifference if they stopped most of it.

Even so, marketing and salesefforts can build brands. “I was fascinated by the idea ofdeveloping brand value through your ability to create an image andsell that image to the public,” said the late Frank M. Woods,founder of the famed Clos du Bois winery in California's SonomaCounty.

See also: The'you first' approach to marketing

The opinion on marketing and sales spans the gamut from doubtfulto indispensable. Why such differing opinions? Problems surfacewhen marketing and sales initiatives fail to meet expectationsbecause they're based on ideas that don't work. Here are fiveexamples:

1. Listening to the wrong people. Listening toothers has merit, unless it's taking advice from the wrong people.It happens all too frequently in business, particularly inmarketing and sales.

Abandoning knowledge and judgment, those in marketing often bendto the wishes of the president, sales manager or other higher-ups,even though they know the results will be disastrous. Then thereare the salespeople who constantly make it clear that their wishesshould prevail because they're on the frontlines and know what'sneeded.

More often than not, it's uninformed opinions and quirky ideasthat prevail, rather than solid research. And you can be sure that“customers come first” is the official company message.

2. Serving the wrong customer. “The next bigthing is here,” read the ads for the Samsung S5 smartphone. Then,The Motley Fool blog dashed the message when itwrote: “One of the big problems with the recent Samsung Galaxy S5launch is that, from day one, it was already being made obsolete bythe rumors of the imminent launches of more premium variants.” It'sjust one more notable example of sending the wrong message byattempting to sell the sizzle instead of the steak to attractbuyers.

Compare the Samsung ad with Apple's ads for its iPhone 5s, whichhas been out for nearly a year, or two years if you include theiPhone 5: “You're more powerful than you think…you have the powerto create shape and share your life. It's right here in your hand.Or bag. Or pocket. It's your iPhone 5s.”

For Samsung, it's the product that drives marketing — always“The next big thing,” while Apple's marketing mission is empoweringthe customer.

See also: It'stime to get creative about sales

3. Distracted by great ideas that go bust. “TheShack,” was the name dreamed up for Radio Shack that wouldtransform the company. And it did. It helped make it what it istoday, an empty shell struggling to survive. Giving a new name to asupercilious attempt to revive a languishing brand without thought,effort and planning is a prescription for failure.

Then there's J.C. Penney. Ron Johnson, who built a success storywith Apple's retail stores and then landed at J.C. Penney, said,“It will be a period of true innovation…” as he instantly replacedsome 60-plus sales events and coupons with better known merchandiseand 'reasonable' prices.

See also: Marketingcampaign postmortem: What went wrong?

J.C. Penney bargain-hunting customers left in droves, and salesdropped 25 percent in 12 months. A short time later, the companydropped Johnson and replaced him with marketers who understood theJ.C. Penney customers. It's another example of how ego-drivenmarketing ends in tragedy.

4. Basing decisions on what makes us look good.Some argue that email marketing is passé and using it dates you.It's also why David Carr caused a stir when he wrote in his NewYork Times blog, “Bloomberg, Fast Company, The NewYork Times, Politico and many other news organizations findthat they can grab attention and readers in the inbox.” That'sright, by using email.

Email works because there's just too much stuff coming at us, sowe gravitate to orderly messages that have value for us. More arefinding it in the inbox.

French winemaker Katie Jones did, reports Dianna Dilworth inEmail Marketing Daily. Her vineyard was vandalized, along with hervat of white wine and was on the verge of closing down. Then, theUK-based online wine retailer Naked Wines launched an emailcampaign, urging its customers to help. And it did. It raised£ 200,000 in forward wine sales in a couple of hours. Thestory also found its way to more emails that helped the vineyardstay in business. Then Naked Wines followed up with emails urgingcustomers to rate the wine and then expanding the email marketingto promote other south of France wine makers that included an emailcompetition to win a trip to the vineyard.

See also: Stopmissing out on sales

Before writing off what others may view as old fashioned, it's agood idea to recognize what works best for customers.

5. Trying to put it over on customers. Whilebusinesses like to believe that their customers trust them, there'sno greater self-delusion. It's so easy for customers to concludethat businesses don't deserve their trust. For example:

• Restaurants that offer specials but tell customers they've justrun out of the red snapper;
• Companies that change rewards programs to benefitthemselves;
• Announcements of a “Huge Sale” but include hidden exceptions(often just about everything) in small print;
• Disguise salespeople as “customer service representatives”;and
• Email marketing campaigns that make it difficult or impossibleto unsubscribe, or ignore unsubscribe requests

Chobani, the Greek yogurt company, found that customer trust canbe quite fragile. When the company put messages on the lids, onecaused real trouble: “Nature got us 100 calories, not scientists.”The company was accused of being anti-science and misleading(there's a lot of science in yogurt manufacturing). Obviously,Chobani must have missed the memo on don't try to put it over oncustomers.

Since bad marketing and sales ideas far outnumber the good ideasmany times over, less than desirable results should be expected.It's something that will continue until more of us start asking:Shouldn't we think about that before we go forward?

See also:

• Whathappened to your deal?
• Why your dying deal can't be saved
• Istraditional sales dead?