Imagine how different life would be if Ruth Wakefield had not dropped a chopped bar of semisweet chocolate into her famous butter cookies at the Toll House Inn to make up for being out of the recipe’s called-for nuts.
No chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. No Cookie Crisp cereal. No Famous Amos or Chips Ahoy! It’s hard not to tear up just thinking about it.
And it’s not just the chocolate chip cookie. Even before the Toll House Inn, there is a history of people figuring out the basics of what makes a cookie delicious. Someone out there had to combine eggs, flour, salt, sugar and butter for the first time to make a cookie.
Rumor has it that cookies originated in Persia in the 7th century A.D. and were then changed and adapted to local ingredients as they made their way across Europe.
Your marketing is a lot like that original butter cookie dough that Wakefield was changing up. You could be on the verge of something iconic, something legendary. How will you ever know if you don’t mix it up?
You might argue that the chances of planning a marketing strategy that has the same impact as a chocolate chip cookie are pretty unlikely, so why bother? Here are several reasons why it would be a good idea to mix it up and try something new:
Assess Your Progress: A lot of companies complete their marketing strategy and never look back to see how techniques are delivering results. It’s important to do some analysis and see if you are meeting your goals.
You may find that a part of your strategy that was a later addition turned out to perform extremely well. You would want to increase your investment in that channel and reduce your spending in another area.
Emerging Trends: One of the great reasons for mixing up your marketing is that there may be new ideas that could help your brand stand out from the noise.
For instance, if none of your competitors were focusing on short-form video in 2023, but you happened to notice that people were preferring shorter content, you could have increased engagement on social media by being in tune with what audiences wanted. It’s hard to always accurately predict what will be a valuable trend and what is simply a fad, but a good marketing team can help you identify the right strategies for your brand.
Reaching New Audiences: If you completed a marketing strategy three years ago, it would be easy to not realize that your target market has started spending a lot of time on Instagram in the past few months. And you might not have noticed how much the engagement on Facebook, where you had typically spent most of your time posting, had dwindled.
In this situation, you would be missing the connections with those you’ve already engaged, but you’re also missing the connections that audience has on Instagram. By mixing up your marketing strategy and trying new channels, you identify new audiences.
Technology Changes: Marketing technology changes fast, just like technology does in other industries. If you haven’t updated your search engine optimizing (SEO) practices, you may be missing out on key parts of the latest algorithms on Google and other search sites.
In addition, social media sites frequently add new features to their profile sites and to the benefits they offer businesses. It’s a good idea to revisit your strategy to see if you are making the most of your social media investment.
If you have noted that one or more of the above applies to your marketing strategy and it’s time to mix it up, here are a couple of tips for how to do it well:
- Go into it with an open mind. Marketing is not an area where you want to apply the concept of, “Well, we’ve always done it this way.” Creativity and flexibility are critical to exceptional marketing.
- Be clear about what you’re trying to do. Have clear goals and metrics that will tell you if you are reaching them.
- Don’t go it alone. Even if you have an in-house marketing team, you’ll exponentially multiply ideas and brainstorming efforts when you bring in some new collaborators.
You’ve got a fantastic brand and your company is solid. Your marketing strategy is also working pretty well. But there are often good reasons to mix it up and SJC Marketing is here to help you get started on some sweet ideas that will further your success.
You may be on the verge of something fantastic that changes everything about how you do marketing. Contact us to talk about whether it’s time to mix up your strategy!