There’s a side table in my office that 87% of people comment on.

It looks like molten gold. It splashed out of a cauldron and it happened to cool mid-air, just as it touched the floor. It’s a piece of art that I can keep a plant and a book on.

I remember the exact moment I first saw it in an online ad.

I held my breath and wondered “What on earth is that?” Click. I loved it. I wanted it. But I didn’t need a $150 gold artsy table.

So I closed the browser window.

If you’re just tracking click-throughs and conversions, you’d mark my click as a failure. I bounced. I did not convert. I did not subscribe to the email list. Proof that marketing doesn’t work. Wasted ad dollars.

But that’s only what happened if we end the story here.

The people behind The Melty Gold Table knew something better than most:

The Path to Purchase is not a direct, straight line.

It can’t always be measured in the neat and tidy ways slick ad salespeople might tell you. They did not end the story.

That table followed me around my day-to-day web use like a raven tap-tapping at the window in my peripheral vision. It would just be a new angle, a new picture… showing up quietly, occasionally—never demanding. Never screaming about a sale, or limited supply, or some other false urgency. The ads just reminded me.

It was over a year from my first click until my resistance wore down. Or maybe I changed. Or maybe I found just the right excuse. Who can truly understand the human heart?

But I finally bought the table. At full price. The second click and straight to purchase. And now it lives in my office, admired by 87% of visitors, sparking curiosity and conversation. I love it so much. They also make some melty candle holders I haven’t bought (yet.)

That’s the power of marketing with a long view.

So when I say “Marketing is dead,” I mean the marketing that demands instant ROI. The kind that yells at us. The marketing that relies on fear and adrenaline. The marketing that forgets we are humans, not cash machines.

This kind of marketing is dying. And I say, let it.

When I say “Long live marketing,” I mean:
Long live the kind of marketing that’s patient. That lingers. That respects how real people make real decisions.

Let your marketing show your heart.
Let your future customers fall in love at their own pace.
Let their desire simmer and rise and justify itself.

Because when you stay present without being pushy,
when you understand how humans actually buy,
you don’t have to force the sale.

You just have to stay golden.

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