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When Marketing Isn’t Landing, It’s Not Always the Message. It Could be the Market Fit.

24 April 2025
Scott Noon
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Categories: Blog

If you’ve ever poured time and budget into a marketing campaign that checked all the boxes—but flopped anyway—you’re not alone.

You did the persona research.
You wrote the copy.
You built the funnel.

So why didn’t it work?

In mywork with K–12 education organizations, this is one of the most common issues we diagnose: product-market misalignment. And it’s almost never obvious from the inside.

🚨 The False Sense of Momentum

When you’re close to your work, it’s easy to confuse motion with progress.

You’ve got:

  • A clear value prop
  • A compelling brand story
  • Testimonials from satisfied customers
  • A team working hard across sales and marketing

But still, the pipeline is stuck. Sales cycles are long. Your win rate is flat—or falling.

Here’s what’s often happening behind the scenes:
Your product can create value—but not for the buyers you’re currently targeting. Or not in the way they need it most.

🔍 What Product-Market Misalignment Looks Like

This misalignment shows up in all kinds of subtle ways. Here are the most common ones we see:

1. You’re solving the wrong problem.

Your messaging talks about quality or innovation.
Your buyer is worried about validated impact and implementation support.

2. You’re selling to the wrong persona.

You’re targeting principals.
The decision-maker is the Chief Academic Officer.

3. You’re timing it wrong.

You’re launching a campaign in Q1.
Your buyer only buys during budget windows in Q3 – Q4.

4. You’re marketing features, not outcomes.

You’re promoting your platform’s functionality.
Your buyer needs a clear story about how you help students catch up in literacy or math.

5. You’re in love with your product.

It’s not about how great it is—it’s about how clearly it solves their urgent, high-visibility problems.

🛠 How We Help Clients Rebuild the Fit

At Midday Advisors, we help K–12 marketers realign strategy with market reality. It starts with two critical questions:

  1. Is the product aligned with an urgent and visible buyer priority (pain)?
  2. Are we communicating that alignment in a way that builds trust, confidence, and action?

Here’s how we do it:

Step 1: Redefine the Buyer

We help clients dig into their real buyer—not just who’s using the product, but who’s influencing and approving the purchase.

You need to understand:

  • The political pressures that buyer faces
  • The KPIs they’re accountable to
  • The other vendors competing for their attention

Most often, this step alone uncovers huge insights that change everything from positioning to outreach.

Step 2: Reframe the Problem

Next, we reframe the product’s value around a bigger problem your buyer already cares about.

Example:
Don’t sell “a better math program.”
Sell “a way to get off the state’s accountability list in 12 months.”

Don’t market “AI tools for formative assessment.”
Market “teacher time back and faster student feedback.”

Buyers don’t need more tools. They need help solving urgent challenges with limited time, budget, and political capital.

Step 3: Align Messaging to Buyer Readiness

Too many campaigns fail because they assume the buyer is ready to act now. In reality, most buyers are:

  • Problem-aware, but unsure of solutions
  • Dealing with competing priorities
  • Under pressure to show results fast

Your messaging needs to:

  • Meet them where they are
  • Reduce perceived risk
  • Offer a clear next step (not a hard sell)

💡 A Quick Example

One of our clients—a fast-growing edtech platform—was struggling to close deals. Their product was strong, but the pitch wasn’t sticking.

After a deep dive, we realized their messaging was focused on tech innovation. Their buyer? A district leader trying to meet state deadlines with as little disruption as possible.

We helped them reframe:

  • From “cutting-edge AI insights”
  • To “a ready-to-deploy solution that helps your teachers do more with existing time and resources”

The result?
More demo requests. Shorter sales cycles. Higher win rates.

🧭 When Marketing Doesn’t Work, Zoom Out

If your messaging is on point, but your funnel is quiet—zoom out. You may need a better understanding of your market fit.

At Midday Advisors, we help education companies sharpen their positioning, tighten their targeting, and build strategies that connect with the real priorities of K–12 buyers.

Because when product and market are aligned, everything starts to click.
If you’re doing “all the right things” but still not getting traction, let’s dig into the root cause.