5 Ways to Revitalize Stale Marketing
The struggle to stay relevant in any industry is as draining as it is necessary. Product R&D is expensive. Head hunting for new talent is time consuming. Opening up new locations spreads precious resources thinner and thinner.
Luckily, there are cost effective methods of inoculating your business from the dangers of stagnation. Methods that won’t throw your carefully constructed empire into disarray. Methods that can be confined to a single department.
Marketing.
Below is an outline of the 5 methods we use to keep our clients at the top of their industries.
1) Update Your Audience Personas
Success in marketing is dependent on having the clearest possible picture of who it is you’re selling to. Abandon all assumptions about who buys your product. Start from scratch and get ready to dig deep.
2) Redefine the Product
Don’t reinvent. That’s expensive. And – without lengthy product testing – can risk alienating your current clientele. Instead, make modification to the sales pitch. Perception is everything and it’s much cheaper. If you’ve been trying to sell based on what your product does, ask yourself what the product means to the people that use it. What applications of the product haven’t you highlighted yet?
3) Use an Unfamiliar Platform
If you’re all over Facebook, give Pinterest a try. Or Vine. We frequently encounter resistance to this idea, but it’s critical. Even if you doubt these mediums are a good fit, simply the act of problem solving for a new format can instigate a surge of new ideas.
4) Mine Wisdom from Other Departments
The intern working in accounting is full of ideas on how to save your company. Most of them are terrible, the rest are impractical, but once in a great while you might find a gem. Prepare to be amazed at the creativity that comes from other departments. Even if you don’t come away with actionable ideas, the off-the-wall thinking can jumpstart your marketing team.
5) Look Beyond Your Industry
Everyone watches their competitors. Most people try and keep up with influencers. But to get ahead of the pack, you have to think wider. Read up on how pastors improve attendance in church or how hospitals compete for market share. For examples of great social media strategies, we’ve gone so far as to study what astronauts have been doing for NASA.
CAUTION: I know you’re excited to put these ideas in action, but I implore you to take your time. Each of the above is designed to foster creativity, and creativity is a process. Instead of adopting all five methods simultaneously, let the team try updating the audience personas for a week and see what comes of it. When the enthusiasm dies down a couple weeks later, get to work redefining the platform.
With each step comes new insights. Give your employees time to act and collect data. Keep what works. Ditch the rest. Rinse. Repeat. Profit.
Nick Cotton is a project manager based out of Los Angeles, California. He’s got a background in the entertainment industry, and uses his talent at online messaging to extol the virtues of content marketing, interactive fiction and sentences measuring 280 characters or less.
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