Adaptive marketing is crucial. If you can’t quickly change your approach when it’s not working, you can be throwing money down the drain. Even when it is working, you should still have a plan to switch it up. When you have a good marketing message and a recognizable brand that are performing as they should be, why should you think about how you can change it? For one, there’s no guarantee that this approach will continue to be successful. Audiences, market forces, and new competition can all shake things up. Here are a few ways to make sure you don’t get left behind.
Practice Brand Adaptation
Even if your brand doesn’t have to change its approach with what it is currently doing, you should always be ready to adapt a brand to new circumstances. For instance, take the example of a print media company moving into publishing stories in a new interest group or category, they may want to change their logo to get closer to the material that they are publishing. Establishing a style guide can help you practice the ways that you can adapt the brand, including its story, its voice, and the imagery that it uses. That way, you can see what does and doesn’t work, making sure that good branding stays consistent even when it has to change a little here and there.
Use Analytics Constantly
Most social media and marketing platforms, at least those online, offer easy access to the analytics that report on how well your marketing efforts are going. They can track the clicks, conversions, bounce rates, and much more that can help you get a better idea of what is going right and what is going wrong. By paying attention to them, you can reduce your spending on strategies that aren’t as effective, while focusing on replicating what works elsewhere. If your analytics show a general decline, it’s a good sign that your overall marketing and branding strategy, at the moment, is not as effective as it should be. It can also help you find the “evergreen content” that you can continue to repost, reuse and adapt to different platforms and topics.
Have a Rebrand at the Ready
Sometimes, the worst does happen. Perhaps a launch goes terribly and you fail to establish any platform for the business for months and months. Perhaps there is a significant mistake that causes irreparable damage to the reputation of the brand as it stands. Or perhaps you simply want to expand into a new market but your existing branding won’t allow for it due to competition that looks too similar. Rebranding your business is a big step and you don’t want to have to do it on the fly. Ask yourself if you’re ready to make the rebrand and, if not, take the steps to establish a rebrand ahead of time. Putting together a second style guide and a new launch strategy might be wise, for instance.
Reevaluate Your Target Audience
As mentioned, your audience may change over the years. You can start targeting one demographic but then find that you’re not getting the customers that fit those expectations. As such, you should always be looking at your target audience and reevaluating who they are, what they need from your business, what their barriers are, and even how you approach them. Collecting customer information with things like email contact forms can help you get a much better idea of who is actually converting to your business rather than who you assume you should be targeting.
Test New Approaches Continuously
Even if you’re marketing effectively and reaching your targets, there are always improvements to be made. Optimization should be done for its own sake, not only when you’re not doing as well as you want. You can unlock the path to a more cost-effective and impactful marketing strategy. For that reason, practice A/B testing where possible. This involves running smaller trials of things like landing pages, email marketing, and adverts that make both minor and major changes to the ones that you are currently running. You can then compare their results and make permanent adjustments if the new method of marketing seems to work more effectively than the one you are currently using. This should be a continuous process, too, not just a one and done.
Marketing, just like any aspect of running a business, needs to be adaptive to the situation. Always have a plan to change things up or at least know how to get insights on the ways it should be changing.
