We all wish we could see into the future – for our careers, our personal lives, and even our bank accounts. But if you could predict the future, how would it change your business’s marketing strategy?
The truth is, there really is no way to tell how successful our marketing efforts will be – no matter how many fortune cookies we open or Magic 8 Balls we shake. And because of this, so many of us play it safe with our strategies. We keep doing things the way we’ve always done them because that’s what we know.
When a new marketing channel pops up – which happens constantly these days – we’re hesitant to invest. We’re afraid of wasting our time, energy and money on a platform that we don’t know for sure will last. It’s understandable. Just look at what happened to MySpace or Friendster.
The marketing landscape is ever-changing, ever-evolving, and there are new channels, methods and tactics emerging all the time.
“What we think is the natural order of behavior today will be altered due to changes in technology, economics, social status, the environment and new products and services being created, combined and transformed on a weekly basis,” says Geoffrey Colon, senior product marketing manager for Microsoft for Bing Ads.
Some channels will fail, some will last; but you’ll never know what will work for your business if you don’t try. Of course, that doesn’t mean you need to try every channel you come across. What’s right for one business may not be right for yours. So how do you know which channels you should try out and which ones you should pass by?
To find out, it helps to take a look at the past, present, and future of marketing.
Looking Back at the Past
Remember the dawn of the internet? Digital was a term used by few, video was only on TV and the social revolution hadn’t even started yet. Now think back to the marketing channels you were using. How did they differ from what you’re doing today? Which of those channels are you still using?
“Even with so many new tools like Facebook, Twitter and beyond, few businesses are actually doing anything markedly different than they used to,” says Jay Baer of Convince and Convert. “Facebook is a fancy photo scrapbook and Twitter is often just a tiny press release machine. It’s the same shouting with a different megaphone.”
While it may be tempting to go out on a limb and try the shiny new marketing channel everyone is talking about, you may not need to. You may already be accomplishing everything you need to with the channels you’ve been using for years.
Take email, for instance. Email has been around almost as long as the internet itself. Unlike many other channels, it has stood the test of time and gained even more traction as a useful marketing tool. In fact, U.S. businesses send an average of 1.47 million emails each month.
Email probably isn’t the only blast from the past that’s still kicking. To find out what else has worked best for your business over the years, you must turn to data.
Perform an audit of the channels you’ve used over the years. Don’t just look at the channels that worked – look at your flops, too. How did people respond to these channels? Dig deep and find out why things worked or didn’t work.
Posted By: Susan Kim
Saturday, April 22nd 2017 at 2:36PM
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