Marketers Have Success, Then Stop Doing What Worked

June 27th, 2011 by Diane Conklin under Information Marketing, Marketing. 2 Comments.

It doesn’t matter what level of market er you are, you either have already, or will at some point in your career, make this mistake.

You are going along and things are going pretty well. You’re in the middle of a marketing campaign and you’re getting good results with what you’re doing.  You get through the entire campaign and have tremendous results with what you’re doing.  You get through the entire campaign and have tremendous results – better than you ever got before with any program you’ve done.

The next time you want to market that exact same program, you do something completely different, instead of going back to the campaign that was successful the last time, and going it again, you try something new.  You develop a whole new campaign; new mail pieces, new emails, new everything.  And, when this campaign isn’t as successful as the last one, you wonder why.

As the old wise man says, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it! Part of this need to develop something new and different simply comes from being an entrepreneur. It’s just in your nature to try new things – you get bored doing the same thing over and over again, so you develop a whole new marketing campaign.

Not surprisingly, your new campaign doesn’t get the same outstanding results you had before , and most of the time you won’t be able to figure out why.

Or, maybe you got great results with the new campaign you created, and that’s what we all hope for, but you spent a lot of time and money you could have been spending on a totally new product, seminar, launch, etc.

It may seem simple, or even too easy, but the smart marketer continues to do what has worked in the past. Do it over and over again, until the results begin to diminish – at that point, you know it’s time to start testing other marketing methods, developing new marketing pieces, marketing in other media, etc. Go back into your business and look at things that worked in the past, see if you’re still doing them, or if you have abandoned them.  If there’s a reason to have moved on to something new, then that’s great, but if there isn’t you want to consider pulling that old campaign off the shelf and doing it again.

Don’t stop doing what works, if it works, do more of it, to a new list and/or to the same list.  Keep doing the things that are working while you’re doing new things.  Don’t abandon the tried and true programs you’ve already invested time and money in to make successful.

Reuse and redistribute the things you already have. You don’t have to use them in the exact same format, but why make new when you can reuse what you already have.  Sometimes a new headline on a mail piece that is proven and has worked in the past is all you need.

Instead of constantly coming up with new content, use what you already have. What have you done recently that you can use in a different media to create a new product?  Have you done a teleseminar?  Could you use that to make some CD’s and a transcript for a new product to sell to your clients?  You could, but do you?

Tags: business, Complete Marketing Systems, Diane Conklin, Direct mail, Direct Response Marketing, Gail Saseen, information marketing, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Small Business, small business owner, Strategy.