Despite months of planning and brainstorming, a seemingly brilliant marketing plan can fall flat as soon as it’s launched.
And no one is immune to such an epic fail, not even the world’s most successful brands.
Hence, if you find yourself with disappointing returns or worse, facing backlash due to a marketing blunder, here are four simple steps that can help you make a strong comeback.
Listen to People’s Feedback
Marketing isn’t easy. However, its benefits always outweigh the risks. Thus, trying again is always worth it.
However, when your initial campaign goes south, you need to pinpoint what went wrong before you launch a new one. This will help you foresee which areas you should look out for moving forward.
And how do you go about this? It’s simple.
Listen to what people have to say. More often than not, feedback will help you determine whether your marketing pitch targeted the wrong audience or worse, inadvertently offended the right one.
In case it’s the latter, rectify the situation by issuing a public apology. Aside from demonstrating accountability, it will help you redeem your brand image and give you a clean slate for future campaigns.
Put Yourself in Your Customers’ Shoes
Let’s say your marketing campaign was lukewarm at best. Sure, it didn’t incite backlash. But it didn’t exactly make an impression either, and that’s almost as bad.
In this case, you still need to take a step back and evaluate your campaign from your audience’s perspective. It helps to ask yourself the following questions:
- Are you offering something unique?
- Did you provide a compelling reason for customers to choose your brand over others?
- Are your products and/or services truly useful to people?
- Did another competitor offer the same campaign even before yours went live?
If you answered yes to one (or more) of these questions, chances are your initial marketing lacked significance and originality.
Hence, explore different approaches. If you have the time and resources, it would also help to visit online forums for ideas. You can also join social media groups to learn more about what people are saying about their preferred brands and businesses.
Analyse Your Numbers
Numbers never lie.
Understanding your KPI’s and metrics will help you measure and track just how effective your marketing activities actually are.
However, checking the engagement levels on your social media posts and accounts isn’t enough. You’ll have to dive deeper into the numbers to fully grasp what went wrong with your marketing approach.
For instance, if you have a Facebook video that has a decent number of views, but has a poor watch time, your content probably wasn’t engaging enough.
Conversely, let’s say your videos have a low number of views, but logged good watch times. In this case, you may need a catchier title and/or caption to entice more people to watch.
Either way, you need data and numbers to figure out the next move.
Learn to Prioritise
Don’t try to do everything at once. Learn to execute one thing at a time, especially when it comes to marketing plans.
When recovering from a marketing faux pas, it’s best to concentrate on one aspect at a time. Focus on a specific platform, a marketing segment, or a novel approach.
Once you’ve done a proper post-mortem for each category, you can combine all your insights to launch a better and smarter marketing approach.
And lastly, resist the temptation to jump onto every marketing bandwagon. What works for others may not necessarily work well for you.
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Serena has been working remotely and writing content for the better part of the last decade. To date, she's written for Pepper.ph and Mabuhay Magazine, among others, and has churned out more than a thousand articles on everything from The Basics of Stock Market Investing to How to Make Milk Tea-Flavored Taho at home. Hermits, aspiring hermits, and non-hermits with interesting project propositions may email her at serena.estrella10@gmail.com.
