Why Marketing Stagnates & how to get back on track – Marketing Magic Tip

Are you doing enough to make your marketing work? Many businesses find that their marketing campaigns suddenly stop getting engagement from their target audience. These people may have lapped up your brand’s activities in the past by liking, sharing, commenting and even buying your products and services. Then suddenly, Nothing!

When people stop responding to your marketing or no longer take the action you want in response to your marketing initiatives, your marketing has ‘stagnated’ – it is no longer working. Many companies are left bewildered and continue to struggle to embrace change to produce the results through online advertising to which they are familiar. Read on to find out why marketing stagnates and what can you do as a business to turn your leads tap back on.

Why marketing stagnates

As a marketing agency, we know what it feels like when previously effective marketing appears to stall. Moreover, many clients come to us because they struggle to get returns from often previously successful marketing activities. So you should not feel that it only happens to your company.

There are many potential reasons for your stagnation, which we will next look at, and address. It is vital that you do not panic or worse still, fall into a cynical and despondent state because you can rescue the situation in most cases and get your marketing back producing returns for your business.

These are some of the reasons marketing results stall.

• Content is no longer interesting, relevant or useful – people tend to like and engage with marketing campaigns from which they derive something useful. In many cases, the ‘thing’ people want and get is information that solves a problem or issue they have. Business’ typically create blogs, guides and downloads to provide useful information. When you change or stop sharing helpful content, it is no surprise that people switch off.
• You change the content from what your audience likes and enjoys. – I will use one of my favourite Instagramers to highlight the point about the drop-off in engagement when you change your content. Comedian De Beer shares fantastically funny jokes every day that makes me laugh out loud. I look forward to seeing his content and happily scroll down my news feed until I get the daily fix that I gladly share and on which I frequently comment. Like most of his engaged followers, I would be horrified if my favourite joker started posting about scientific research, business tips or pet advice, for example. Impressive though the new content may be, I would feel obliged to scroll past his posts if he stopped sharing ‘funnies’. People enjoy consistency in the marketing activities of the brands they follow.

       The following graph of sales time series data is a great tool to identify          positive or negative variations that you have made in your campaign.

      The graph illustrates a definite drop-off in sales after a moment in                time. Every business can plot a similar chart based on engagement,              enquiries or sales from their marketing activities.

• Complacency – people love your marketing campaigns, and the revenue is pouring in. Many businesses fall for the temptation to carry on doing the same things over and over again because it has worked previously. Be wary of doing your marketing on autopilot. By switching off, no matter how small the change, your target audience is likely to notice that something is different. Complacency can mean not being as rigorous in adhering to your values or presenting your marketing content less rigorously. Your audience will see that you are not actively engaged in the marketing and then also switch off.
• Sticking with the status quo – as I alluded to above, marketing is not a one-shot process. Effective marketing demands that businesses invest time to monitor their marketing performance data to identify what is working and what is not, innovate in line with industry trends and adapt to the ever-shifting marketing landscape. Perhaps the rise of video in marketing best highlights the need-to-adapt point. You have to be living in a dark cave for the last few years not to have noticed that people engage more with video than a photo or written content. So all things being equal, every business is having to incorporate video into their marketing strategy – this evolution of content format impacts things like presenting testimonials, information about your business, information about your team and even the advent of new video blogs that are replacing written content. Moving with the landscape is crucial to continue to get engagement.

The common theme in the issues that lead to marketing stagnation is businesses that lose focus on their marketing; they take their eye off the ball. The drop of in results of marketing campaigns is indicative of factors that may look like inconsequential small failings or oversights. The issues are evidence that a business is not doing enough of the right things with their marketing. There is always something we can do to get our marketing back on track. Let us look at the steps that will assist to start getting the returns from your marketing investment again.

How to get marketing back on track

Taking responsibility for these issues is the first step to getting your marketing activities back on track to start working for your business again. By accepting that your company is not focusing enough on your campaigns, then the following strategies can help to resolve the situation.

1. Analyse your marketing performance periodically and often – taking control of your marketing data gives you the platform to accurately analyse the performance of your activities. One of the advantages of digital marketing is that there is substantial and accurate data on all of our actions, as opposed to traditional marketing that felt more akin to advertise and hope.

        Businesses should sit down as a team to review Facebook analytics,              Twitter analytics and Google analytics reports at least monthly.                      Analytical data will highlight what is working and arrears to address          before they become significant issues that lead to a slowdown in your          engagement

2. Review the four components of your campaign – the same four elements make up every marketing campaign: hook, headline, message and graphics or video creative. I have written in detail about these components and how they work previously, that you can see HERE. Analysing which of these components of your marketing campaign are getting the best results for your business is crucial to guide what you should be doing more off. Similarly, be open to changing elements that are less effective, or that could work better with a change.
3. Find out what the competition is doing – You are not the only business going after your ideal audience. It is likely that other firms are also running marketing campaigns to get your audience to engage and buy from their brands. You can learn a lot about what you should be doing in your marketing campaigns by analysing the marketing that other companies in and outside your sector are investing their money in. Understanding other company’s marketing activities will help you to know changes and trends that you may need to adapt into your marketing so that you are always ahead of the direction.
4. Focus on giving value – marketing has changed from the days of pushing adverts out in one-way communication about how great your products and services are. Today’s consumers engage with marketing communications that help them solve problems. So focus on providing useful marketing collateral that helps your audience solve a problem or issue. I am not a fan of the trend you now see everywhere these days, with businesses posting motivational quotes. Motivational quotes are unlikely to engage your target audience unless you are a business or lifestyle coach. The best marketing campaigns give away advice guides, tips and resources that people can use. However, it is always worth reviewing whether the value you are offering is still attractive to your audience. It is crucial to delivering the highest possible value for your customers consistently.
5. Be innovative – It is easy to keep doing the same thing over and over again because it has worked in the past. Technology and trends change, so should your marketing. Don’t be afraid to try new things to take advantage of changes in the landscape. For example, instead of giving away written guides and reports, maybe your audience would prefer infographics and video blogs that make it easy to understand the information. As we move forward, who know the roles Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) will play in marketing campaigns in the future? We should be prepared to adapt our marketing to take advantage of the latest and best technologies.
6. Get an expert agency to manage your marketing – reputable marketing consultants have experience of developing and maintaining marketing campaigns for businesses like yours. Outsourcing your marketing typically gives you the benefit of not having to design, monitor and manage your campaigns, while also ensuring that you don’t drop the ball on any of the crucial tasks. Furthermore, a great agency’s expertise should help you to stay on top of your marketing and implement many, if not all, of the suggestions I have proposed in this post. The right agency for your business may also have additional expertise that they can bring to bear in your marketing activities that will prolong achieving the results you receive.

Bringing it all together

Effective marketing for your business is not a once and for all time activity. Successful marketers invest time and effort to continue to achieve good returns that justify their marketing spend. On the flip side, taking your eyes off the ball and missing technical and preferences changes in your target audience can quickly lead to marketing that becomes a cost with little or no benefits for your business, instead of being an investment. Making your marketing activities your top priority through the systematic use of performance data can be priceless.

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