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We’re lucky to live in a time where marketing advice is available to you at the push of a few buttons. There’s so much advice out there about how to build your own marketing strategy, but very little to tell you how to spot problems in your current one. Sometimes the issues can be blindingly obvious but other times, the problems can be more subtle and require a keen eye and critical mind in order to sus out.
In this blog post, we give you 7 things you can keep an eye out for to determine whether or not your marketing strategy is as effective as it can be.
Why does marketing strategy matter?
A unique marketing strategy is the way to stand out in a crowded market. It’s the key to unlocking your potential and can end up causing a lot of issues if you’re using some generic copy-paste strategy that you found online. If that’s the case for your current strategy, it’s only a matter of time before you’re going to require an audit.
These pre-existing strategies can be useful when you’re just starting in marketing but won’t last for the long term. For modern audiences, uniqueness is key to making them pay attention to your brand.
7 reasons you might need to CTRL-R your current strategy
Here are 7 things you should consider before you refresh your marketing strategy:
1. Are people interacting with your content?
Your audience is your best metric for gauging the effectiveness of your content. People interact with content that speaks to them which means you need to have a clear idea of who your audience is and how to speak to them. If people aren’t interacting with your content or aren’t doing so as much as you’d like, take a moment to see what they’re saying. What are they interacting with on social media and what pulls their attention? Observe, analyse and refresh your marketing strategy.
2. How much time does your marketing require?
Is it a timesink or a quick-and-easy, no-brainer kinda task? Marketing is an investment and requires you to dedicate your time in exchange for screentime with your audience. However, if you’re obsessing over every detail (and still not pulling results) then you may want to reconsider how much time is worth spending on your marketing each week. In order to drive success in marketing, you need to be consistent. Getting anywhere in marketing requires a lot of time and dedication but you shouldn’t be so overwhelmed with marketing that you’ve no room for anything else. Take a step back and really consider the future of your marketing - how much time is it worth to get it right?
3. Is your marketing returning investment?
As much as marketing requires time, it also requires money. You must invest both of them for a successful strategy - but what if you aren’t seeing the results you need, want or expect? Putting money into something only to have it fall flat can be disheartening, but it doesn’t mean you should give up. Marketing is all about experimenting until you find something that works - and then experimenting some more. Put a little bit of money here and there and see what gives you the best ROI, what’s worth cutting and if anything requires further analysis.
4. Are you experimenting?
As we mentioned in the last point, marketing is all about experimentation. You try, you test, you fail, you try again and eventually you find success. But even after that success, you must continue to experiment. Whether you’re just starting out and no one’s biting or your numbers have recently started to fall, experimentation might just be the answer. It’s the name of the game when it comes to marketing, so play it! Try different kinds of content, try different styles of copy, try changing your target audience - you’ll be surprised at what you may find!
5. Does your marketing speak for the company’s mission, vision and values?
Understanding the mission, vision and values (MV&V) of your company is vital to a good marketing strategy. If you don’t have those, then you don’t have any marketing. Your MV&V are a great framework for building content too. It allows you to speak from a more genuine position with language your audience is likely to empathise with and understand. You can even use your MV&V to evaluate whether the style of marketing you’re trying fits the company; for example if your vision consists of future-tech but you’re putting ads in newspapers, it doesn’t really align with the message you’re trying to send your audience AND it’s far less likely to reach your desired audience in the first place.
6. Has the department actively progressed and gotten better?
A great sign of growth is change. Whether you’ve got a whole marketing department at your disposal or the ‘department’ is just one person, you can tell when things are improving internally. Auditing internal processes is a surefire way to determine if your marketing is genuinely improving or if it’s remaining stagnant. Conduct reviews on a regular basis to ensure you’re closely monitoring the growth of the department and can notice when things change.
7. Is your content inspiring?
The word ‘inspiring’ can be used in a variety of contexts here. Does your content inspire the audience to a CTA? Does the content inspire you and your team to make more content? Does it inspire your audience to think about things in a new, different or unique way? Does it inspire any change in the industry?
Of course you don’t need to hit all of these in order to have a successful marketing strategy, but hitting at least two will make all the difference. Creating inspiring content allows you to be confident and self-assured, resulting in your audience viewing your company as industry experts.
Conclusion
If you find yourself resonating with one or more of these points, then it’s probably time for you to reevaluate your marketing strategy. To find success in marketing, you need to be constantly evaluating the effectiveness of your content and adapting to what you learn. This world is all about experimenting, adapting and building.
If this all sounds like a lot - it is! But there’s no need to worry, we’ve got your back. Get in touch with us and we’ll see how we can boost your marketing.
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