With the average marketing plan covering all aspects of lead generation, including advertising, sales, promotions and public relations, a failing strategy can make or break the success of your wider business model. The majority of businesses, regardless of their size or niche, rely on successful marketing to get their brand name, and the products or services that sit at its centre, out there to potential customers.

Whether your aim is to bring a new product or service to market; introduce your brand and its ethos to a wider, untapped audience; demonstrate why your business is better than your competitor’s; or to simply get your name out there to build on an already solid reputation, marketing matters. The net is full of examples of the marketing success stories that have made brands who they are today, but what if things don’t go to plan and your carefully curated strategies fall on deaf ears? Here we take a closer look at what to do when your marketing isn’t working so you can get back on track once again.

How to tell if your marketing plan needs a revise

If your company is experiencing the following, it may be time for a marketing plan revise:

• Your company profits aren’t growing as quickly as you’d like, and as a result you aren’t gaining the market share your business ought to
• The revenue generated by current marketing activities is difficult to identify
• The buying processes, tried and tested routes to market and the drive behind previously existing demand is changing
• Competitors have more successful marketing outcomes and a bigger brand presence than you with less effort
• Returns are diminishing and so too is the success of your lead generation activities.

Why is your marketing not working?

There are many reasons why your marketing efforts may not provide the success and subsequent returns you desire. Lack of planning, no clear marketing direction, failures to identify target audience needs and the tactics that will resonate more successfully with them, single minded strategies, and limited marketing budgets are all common reasons why the average marketing plan doesn’t work. Pointing out the reasons why your specific marketing plan isn’t working however, is just the beginning.

What to do next

The success of some marketing strategies, such as many of the tactics used for SEO purposes, rely a lot on the time factor, but it is important to recognise why your marketing plan is failing and how to fix it if you have given more time where more time is needed.

Once you have identified the areas that need readdressing, focus your attention on market research and planning. The marketing world is particularly competitive and using your marketing to differentiate your brand from others vying for business in your sector is important, especially if you inhabit a congested marketplace. Use your findings to retarget your plans to fit your audience and adjust your messaging to interact with the people you are trying to reach. Segmenting your strategy is a worthwhile step also, and allows you to gain better results with individual audience segments and via more distinct strategic paths. By using more specific data as the basis of your marketing plan you can identify and control your strategy more successfully, pinpointing the components that work (and utilising them even more efficiently for better results) and the ones that don’t (adjusting or cutting them out of your plan accordingly).

Worried your marketing plan isn’t making the impact it should do? Let us help you find a better approach for your business. Contact our friendly team of marketing specialists today to get started.