Dear Leaders - CEOs, CMOs, or anyone in charge of approving campaigns,

Digital marketing teams everywhere are quietly frustrated. Not because they don’t love the work, but because of how their work is treated once it leaves their desks.

If your team has designed a digital marketing plan and shared it with you for review, please review it thoroughly before telling them, “It’s good to go.” Your team takes your approval ("it's good to go") as final and gets to work, spending hours, sometimes days, researching, writing, designing, and preparing creative assets that align with the plan you’ve signed off on.

Then, mid-execution, the changes start rolling in: “Change this. Adjust that. Remove this post.” as if the original plan never mattered.

I get it, sometimes, new information comes in, and priorities shift. It happens. But when last-minute changes become the norm instead of the exception, the damage runs deep. As a digital marketing team lead and mentor, I hear this story far too often; sometimes, I’ve lived it myself.

What Your Team Won’t Tell You

I know you might not mean it this way (or maybe you do), but many digital marketers are quietly working in pain; frustrated, demotivated, and unable to say anything because the environment doesn’t feel psychologically safe enough to speak up.

And it’s not just the “marketer” you’re affecting. The copywriter who carefully crafted the words, the designer who built every visual, the strategist who mapped the plan, the social media manager scheduling posts, even the data analyst tracking results - they all feel it when your approvals don’t hold and midstream changes keep coming.

Creativity is not a tap you can turn on and off at will. It takes energy, focus, and inspiration to craft great campaigns. Every last-minute change drains that energy, disrupts momentum, and tells your team their work doesn’t matter.

A Better Way To Lead

A clear “yes” beats a shifting “maybe.”

✅ Review thoroughly before approval.

✅ Make your “yes” mean something.

✅ Build a safe space where your people can share honest feedback without fear.

Final Thoughts

Digital marketing is not just a series of posts or ads. It’s strategy, creativity, and countless hours of unseen work. Respect that, and you’ll unlock both better campaigns and stronger, more motivated teams.

I’m David Ikechi, helping brands and social projects in Africa and beyond tell their stories, grow their reach, and champion healthier workplace cultures.

What’s your take on this? Leaders, marketers, I’d love to hear your perspective.