This morning I heard a well-known local weatherman say on the radio that
he’s no longer surprised by this winter’s crazy weather. In other words, he’s gotten used to having no
idea what’s going to happen next.
Have you ever felt that way about your marketing promotions? You used to think you knew what to expect and
then--BAM!--the lack of response or sluggish response to a previously
successful or predictable campaign leaves you scratching your head.
As a marketer, you’ve done what weather predictors have done for thousands
of years: make observations and predict behaviors based on past patterns. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Don’t let it get you down.
Although weather forecasting has come a long way since the Babylonians days
of cloud-watching, forecasters still sometimes get next week’s weather activity
wrong or miss something entirely.
What does that mean for you as a marketer?
Should you just throw your hands in the air and give up?
Not at all. Despite all of our best
efforts, we can’t always predict what someone--a customer, a prospect, a
member, or a donor--will do. People are
just unpredictable that way, and there are often circumstances beyond our
control or our knowledge affecting our audiences’ decision-making processes. So what can you do?
·
Continue
tracking customer, donor, and member behavior and look for ways to draw out
more feedback and insight from your market.
People do surprise us sometimes, but they generally follow patterns of
behavior. Check the timing of your
promotion against previously successful campaigns. Look at what’s going on in your
industry. Keep observing and predicting,
and really study and analyze those promotions that don’t perform according to
plan.
·
Re-evaluate
your sales process. Make sure you
understand how your audience evaluates and buys a product or service, and then
make sure your marketing strategies, offers, and copy fall in line.
·
Compare
apples to apples. If you’re comparing
this year’s response to last year’s, make sure the campaigns you’re comparing
are identical: same offer, same format, same costs, etc. If the campaigns are different, or if your
costs or the offers are different, then one campaign might naturally create a
better response than the other.
The bottom line?
Don’t give up. Even if you didn’t
get the response that you expected today, we can guarantee you this: the sun
will rise again tomorrow.