Should You Divorce Your Current Marketing Plan?

When it comes to promoting your business, it can be easy to become preoccupied with the various marketing techniques and platforms available. However, this can cause you to lose sight of the overall plan and how well it’s performing.

Are your marketing goals still relevant and appropriate?

Are you leveraging the right tactics and are they effective?

It’s important to review your marketing strategy regularly to avoid wasted budget and missed opportunities. Here are 4 important signs that it is time to update or change your current marketing strategy.

1. The strategy is more than 2-3 years old

Marketing teams should come together every 12 to 18 months to discuss their marketing plan. This annual review can help organizations analyze helpful data about their business and gain a better understanding of the types of marketing that work best for them. It makes it easier to ensure that you are making the most efficient use of your budget. You can see where potentially overlooked opportunities may be and give the organization the chance to make necessary changes.

2. Audience engagement is low

When audience engagement drops, this can be a sign that their interests and needs have changed. Customer needs can shift at an incredibly fast rate, and brands need to adapt in order to keep up. When engagement decreases, the time has come to make some adjustments.

To better understand what matters to your customers, carefully track your campaigns. Monitor the amount of traffic and leads your campaigns generate and how well those customers move through the sales funnel. Social listening and audience research can also provide valuable insight into customer trends and what matters to your target audience.

3. Tactics are not working together

If your tactics operate in silos, you will see significantly less progress. Customers today interact with organizations across multiple platforms. They typically do not decide to buy after just seeing a paid ad, for example. Instead, that ad might encourage them to visit your site, and if they like what they see, they might sign up for an email list.

Social media, blogs, and even traditional channels like radio must work together to provide customers with a consistent experience. This will make your brand easier to recognize across platforms, boosting brand awareness and recall. It also helps the customer experience, encouraging them to buy and become repeat customers.

To form a cohesive strategy, bring together your different departments. Create common campaigns that are promoted across all platforms with consistent language. The different tactics can also boost the effectiveness of others. For example, radio ads can drive search traffic, boosting search engine optimization efforts (SEO), and influence customers’ path to purchase.

4. You’re not seeing the desired results

If you are not seeing the results you would like to see from your marketing campaigns, then it is definitely time to rethink your strategy. Be sure to routinely monitor and measure your performance to identify areas of improvement. Review your analytics, evaluate your tactics and reallocate your budget to more impactful efforts. This ensures that your strategy is optimized to maximize your marketing spend and deliver better results.

As you build your business, do not overlook the importance of revisiting your marketing strategy regularly and refining your campaigns. This will make it easier to achieve continued growth and success for your business. If you want to learn more about how you can create an effective marketing strategy, reach out to us at Hubbard Chicago. We have the experience and expertise needed to create a marketing plan that will help you maximize your budget and improve your results.