If you work in marketing, you’ll now that in some cases, despite everybody’s best efforts, campaigns can fail spectacularly. Whether the product is substandard, the language was wrong, or the graphic design concept was well below par, sometimes its best to accept that when you’ve lost the battle. This doesn’t mean its time to give up, though. There are always things to learn from campaigns that didn’t work and despite what you may think, there are also several ways you can potentially turn them in to a success. Here’s Probella’s guide on how to fix failed marketing campaigns.
Identify Areas of Weakness
This can be a long, slow process but it is always worth investing time and effort in to understanding your failures, so you can build on any areas that need attention. It could be that your mail chimp or email marketing content was substandard and full of broken links. There could be an issue with loading times on your website or problems with customer communication. Whatever it is, the golden rule is to be brutally, unapologetically honest with yourself and your staff. Though the initial acceptance can be painful, doing this can help you and your team to identify clear, measurable targets that you can work towards.
Try to find a few positives
This can be extremely difficult, especially if you’ve received consistently negative feedback from customers, or worse, you’ve ended up getting complaints. Even if its as simple as congratulating your staff on their efficient way of dealing with negative comments or their resilience in the face of unexpected challenges, its important to try and find at least a couple of positive things you can focus on to avoid lowering moral too much.
Ask for feedback
This is something so many businesses are too shy to do. They fear it makes them look weak, inexperienced or worse, incompetent. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you think about the current models of customer feedback, including star rating systems, recommendations and the ability to leave detailed reviews, there’s never been a better time to engage with the people you’re selling to directly. Asking for feedback about a poorly received campaign shows humility and demonstrates that you genuinely respect what your potential customers think about you. There are rarely any rewards to be reaped from simply burying your head in the sand or trying to cover up a poorly conceived campaign. Own your mistakes and use them to help you improve.
Examine Your Content Carefully
From landing pages to email copy, blog posts to product descriptions, the content you provide for a campaign is critical. If people aren’t subscribing to your weekly newsletter or clicking through to the online store after landing on your welcome page, you need to know why. Check that calls to action are clear, concise and impossible to miss. Similarly, scan any larger chunks of text quickly to make sure they’re easy to read and not too boring. In today’s world, attention spans are dwindling, so anything that seems more effort than its worth to read will be ignored. Video and image-based content can play a part in failed campaigns, too. Everything you put out into the public domain should be congruent, relevant and necessary. Customers can spot content that’s been created to fill gaps in a heartbeat.
Be Realistic About the Market You’re Dealing With
The first question you need to ask yourself is “does the market really exist?” Many campaigns fail because the people behind them have been far too optimistic about the potential for generating sales within a niche area of an industry. You also need to be aware of things like trends and over saturation. Though a product may look like a potential goldmine at the start of a business year, if several hundred other companies have a similar idea, competition will be fierce and genuine profit will be scarce. Finally, think about your customers. How much money do they have to spend and are they likely to spend it on the products or services you offer? Always compare the competition and never try to price yourself inappropriately.
Rebooting and Reinvention
Failure is part of life, whether we want to accept it or not. If a campaign isn’t successful, but you think you know why, never be afraid to reboot or reinvent existing concepts and ideas, so they appear more appealing. Campaign 2.0 should be a leaner, more dynamic version of the original, capitalising on the elements you know are successful and trimming away any needless expenses or ineffective strategies. This where customer feedback and staff involvement are key. Pay attention to what’s being said, even if you don’t personally agree with it. What matters the most at the end of the day is how the people who purchase your products perceive the messages you send out to them.
Analyse Your Data Thoroughly
This part can be particularly painful, especially when you’re looking at low conversion rates or a serious amount of lost budget due to badly research PPC ideas, but it is an essential part of the process. Your website data will who show you which pages people have engaged with and for how long, so you can idea of why they’re not reacting to the information you’re putting out there. Call volumes and the number of digital contacts via things like webchat and email are also important. In some cases, too much engagement can lead to as many problems as too little, especially for smaller businesses with a limited staff budget. Ultimately, the data will give you the cold, hard facts about which areas of the campaign are working and which could be a cause for concern.
Summary
Ideally, failed campaigns should be looked on as a learning exercise, not a reason to give up. Use them to identify training needs, gaps in industry knowledge and other potential problem areas. Nobody likes to admit they’ve made a mistake but doing so is the first step to establishing success.
