Surprised by the results of your digital marketing campaign? Targets missed by a couple of country miles? Don’t fret, sulk, hide, or heap tons of blame on your worthy cohorts. Plans sometimes go away. It’s part of the game. When that curve ball is thrown, brand marketers have two basic choices: ditch the finely-wrought plan, or make necessary adjustments. By far, the more profitable option is the latter.
Why shouldn’t you just chuck the whole mess and start from scratch? Because, unless you’ve been snoozing on the job, you’ve invested hours of quality time and mountains of precious cash on the campaign. Toss it overboard, and the investment becomes instant waste. And nobody gets a promotion when that happens. Far, far better to salvage what you can – which often is quite a chunk. All that’s required is a willingness to review the situation and fine-tune the plan with proper adjustments.
When adjusting, your first order of business is examining the frequency of published digital content. Just maybe you’re overdoing it, flooding cyberspace with content galore. Sure, it’s high value stuff. But let’s face it, at some point users will get their fill and turn away. Thorough investigation and intensive metrics monitoring will reveal once and for all the answer to this question: Are you overdoing it?
On the other hand, your digital output may be on the skimpy side, showing up at minimal, and sometimes inconvenient, intervals. A squeak that should be a shout. Therefore, you might have to boost the output to satisfactory levels.
All this goes to show that at some point you must heed the ‘porridge paradigm’ established by the eminent researcher Goldilocks – find the amount that’s just right.
During plan adjustment, the other amount that should be re-evaluated is the campaign’s budget. If it’s already ballooned to unacceptable levels, this could be a touchy subject. Nevertheless, your ad spend might be insufficient, leaving the engine short on fuel. Don’t be surprised, then, when your campaign sputters and stalls – it simply lacks the power to push forward.
You will, of course, need to set aside a time for plan review. Don’t rely on spontaneous get- togethers. These are too easy to avoid. Your best bet is scheduling the review and sticking to it.
If you have questions or comments about updating your digital marketing plan, or any other brand-related topic, feel free to send them our way. You can connect with the Young Company team at 949-376-8404 or bart@youngcompany.com. And be sure to follow us for the latest brand marketing news and tips.