Unfortunately, all businesses eventually hit “the stall.” Everything might have been going well up to this point, but suddenly, the same marketing tactics you’ve been using are no longer as effective.
When this happens, it can be easy to think it’s just an anomaly and things will rebound after a short period of time. However, for discerning marketing teams, this can be a sign that it’s time to try something new.
Marketing leaders should always be willing to approach business problems in unique ways. This includes applying more modernized strategies that keep their organizations moving forward and less reliant on the “status quo.” Below are some of these strategies that can be used.
Leverage Data for Better Decision Making
There’s nothing wrong with using a bit of your gut feelings to guide certain marketing directions. Most marketing leaders have a wide range of professional experiences that can help them make smart decisions on behalf of the business. But, while helpful, these gut feelings shouldn’t drive every choice you make.
Leveraging proven data is also essential when executing new marketing initiatives. Instead of just making assumptions on the best way to move forward, combining your own perspectives with what the numbers show is a much more sustainable approach. By establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to your ongoing objectives, you’ll have a better picture of where you should place marketing resources and whether or not they’re providing effective results.
Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment
It’s hard to be creative if you’re uneasy about taking certain chances. It’s important for your marketing teams to feel like experimentation is a critical element of their role. This is what drives more innovation and helps avoid stale marketing approaches.
The key here is to be balanced. While experimenting with new advertising techniques or channels may be helpful, trying new things blindly without having a real plan for evaluating their effectiveness can quickly lead to diminishing returns. Instead, keep your teams adaptable, allowing them to embrace a more experimental mindset while also ensuring they’re able to pivot if tests aren’t panning out as expected.
Make Use of Marketing Technology
Marketing strategies are regularly evolving. What typically causes this is the availability of new tools and technology that help businesses improve both their internal operations and external outreach strategies.
Marketing teams should regularly look for ways to add more automation and efficiency in what they do. The great thing is, there is now a wide range of solutions available that marketing teams can use. Whether it’s a project management tool to help employees manage their tasks or an email campaign tracker, these types of investments help businesses get the most value from their marketing efforts.
Use Customer-Centric Approaches
A primary goal for most marketing teams is to find ways to create more brand ambassadors. The more people speaking favorably about the brand, the higher the likelihood of attracting new leads. But before you can achieve this, you need to have a deep understanding of what really motivates your audience.
As you uncover new information about your current or potential customers, you can develop customer-centric marketing campaigns. This focuses on making the messaging you deliver much more potent, which improves engagement on all levels. Taking this approach helps you to build stronger connections and, ultimately, more long-term loyalty.
Create Cross-Channel Marketing Consistency
Depending on the industry your business is in, chances are that people will interact with your brand in different ways. Some may prefer social media engagements, while others may subscribe to company blogs or newsletters. However, while each of these touchpoints is unique in its own right, the overall experience from a customer’s point of view should be seamless.
Marketing teams should have the necessary processes in place to ensure they can maintain this level of consistency across all digital platforms. This requires a lot of internal communication and an organized method for storing and distributing digital assets.
Continuously Refine Your Processes
Waiting until your lead counts or conversion rates begin to slump isn’t when you should be making marketing changes. It’s important to regularly track the success of your marketing initiatives over time and continuously improve how you reach and connect with new audiences.
Effective marketing is an iterative process. You should be monitoring your business metrics on a daily basis, looking for potential signs that market demands may be shifting. Getting ahead of major shifts is critical to avoiding stalls that can impact your revenue streams and your bottom line. Identifying these trends early on lets you shift directions or start exploring newer markets where your marketing campaigns will have a greater impact.
Keep a Forward-Thinking Mindset
Maintaining a forward-thinking mindset is important for businesses to be successful. However, being “forward-thinking” means more than just being willing to adopt new business technologies. It also means finding ways to combine these solutions with your current operations and “enhancing,” not ‘replacing,” what’s already working.
In some cases, you may find that some of your current processes are still highly effective. Don’t be tempted to start everything from scratch if you start seeing a decline in sales. Take a closer look at where improvements are actually needed and adapt as needed.
Being forward-thinking really just means not being afraid of challenging the status quo without sacrificing foundation marketing components such as overarching business objectives or big picture goals.
Establish Clear Metrics For Success
While tracking KPIs in your marketing campaigns is important, it’s more important to track the “right” metrics for your business. Before you launch any new initiatives, spend time with your teams to create measurable goals that make sense for the business.
The right KPIs to choose will all depend on the goal of your business. For example, you may be simply trying to build more awareness for your brand. In this case, tracking metrics such as website traffic volume, social media post views, or emails being read. In other situations, you may be more focused on conversions. This means you should be tracking advertised cost of sales (ACoS), click-through rates, or conversion percentages.
Tracking the optimal metrics for what you’re trying to achieve will give you a more accurate representation of how impactful your strategies are. They’ll also help you to stay on budget while making sure you see the ROI you’re hoping for.
Get Feedback From Others
Leveraging helpful marketing data doesn’t just mean tracking various metrics. Collecting data from others directly is also helpful in improving your efforts. Unique perspectives from customers or even other members of your marketing team can be really helpful in nudging your marketing efforts in the right direction.
Consider sending out formal surveys to customers or scheduling conversations with various company departments. Ask for honest input regarding the methods being used to engage with customers. Use these different perspectives to help you keep your efforts relevant and address certain elements that might be lessening the impact of your campaigns.
Keep Your Marketing Tactics Relevant
Waiting for your sales efforts to decline is the wrong time to take a hard look at your marketing approach. By regularly evaluating your marketing tactics over time and identifying when it’s time to adapt, you’ll be able to keep your business messaging relevant to your current and potential customer base, giving you more opportunities to grow sustainably over time.
Guest author: David Maricich, President & Chief Creative Officer of Maricich Health, has spent more than 20 years leading healthcare innovation, branding, marketing, and communications initiatives for hospitals, health systems, and Fortune 500 healthcare companies across the U.S. and internationally. He has led growth, advocacy, and change-management campaigns while helping organizations improve public health outcomes through strategic, creative communications.
