Amazingly enough, the new year is only a couple of months away. When that comes, you’ll see lots of information about New Year’s resolutions, making changes, and starting something new.
The turn of the year can be a good time to try new things, but if you want to do that, you first need to make space by letting go of something you’re currently doing.
It may not be particularly fun to sit down and examine your current activities to find problems, but it’s necessary to do sometimes. And if you do it now, it will leave you in a position to try those new things in January.
To help get you started, here are a few questions to consider.
What’s getting results?
The first thing to consider is whether a particular strategy is getting results. For example, if you post ads on Facebook, are they getting much traffic? How many people are taking action? Are the results what you hoped for?
This may take a little effort, but it’s well worth it. After all, you don’t want to continue investing time or money into something that’s not helping you.
If you’re not getting any results, it may make the most sense to drop that strategy altogether.
If you’re getting some results but want more, think about ways you could tweak your approach. Should you target a different demographic? Should you publish ads or social media posts or newsletters at a different time of the day or week? Do you need better images?
Just remember, don’t change everything at once. Make one change and see how it impacts your results before trying something else.
How much time does it take?
Another factor you need to consider when you’re reviewing this information is how long it takes. If you’re doing daily social media posts, how much time do you have to invest in that?
That’s another piece to consider when you’re deciding whether to continue with that strategy or not. If it takes you hours to do something that only gets a small response, consider how much your time is worth and if that’s really the best thing to focus on.
Or if you’re paying someone else, how much time is it taking them, and do your results compensate for the cost of having someone else do that?
Only you can decide if something is worth your time and effort. The key point is to make sure you’re taking that into consideration.
Did you jump on a bandwagon?
Finally, it also helps to consider whether you’re using a particular strategy because it makes sense for your business or service. Or if you’re only doing it because it’s what all the experts recommend.
Those who make a living doing marketing have lots of good ideas, but each business is different, and so is its audience. Even if a particular approach works for the vast majority, it may not be working for you.
If it’s not working for you, it’s worth taking another look to make sure you’re using the approach as recommended. You may find that you need to change something before you see the same results as others.
But you may also have to decide that while this strategy may be working for others, it’s not doing much for you. In that case, it’s time to jump off the bandwagon.
It’s all about making space
Going through your marketing strategies like this isn’t always fun, but it helps identify when it’s time for a change. And remember, the goal isn’t to make you feel bad about what’s not working – it’s to make space for you to try other things.