You’ve probably spent a lot of time gearing up for the holiday rush of Black Friday/Cyber Monday, but what happens once that push is over? While it’s always a good idea to carefully plan your marketing strategies, what do you do when things don’t go according to plan? Rather than throw out your marketing strategy altogether, pivot your strategy to head in the right direction with as little disruption to your business as possible. Here, we’ll cover how agility and resiliency in your marketing strategy will help your business thrive.
Reasons to Pivot your Strategy
So, what would cause the need for a pivot? Here are some reasons you may need to adjust your strategy:
Subpar Results
Marketing strategies have a learning curve, and sometimes the assumptions you make about your audience don’t play out the way you expected them to. If you are getting low engagement on your social media platforms or low conversion rates in your paid campaigns, it’s time to pivot how you are communicating with your audience. Use industry benchmarks in addition to past metrics for your business to get an idea of how your content is performing.
Shifting Trends
Marketing is a dynamic industry that is in constant flux. Tactics that worked in the past might no longer be viable. Changes in consumer behavior, technological updates, and even seasonal shifts can affect how your campaigns perform. After the holiday rush, you may realize specific marketing approaches are no longer a hit, or you may notice that certain products take priority in your industry depending on the season. Changes on platforms like TikTok and Instagram may offer you new ways to engage with your audience or highlight your goods and services. These are all perfect opportunities to pivot your strategy to meet changing consumer needs.
Business Model Changes
Pivoting the entire business model is sometimes necessary to breathe new life into your company. But when your business model changes, your marketing strategy needs to pivot accordingly. If you’re not seeing the results you need, operating in a saturated market, or exploring new markets for more sustainable growth, then it might be time to consider rebranding or changing how your business operates. Erica Weiner, NYC’s premier luxury vintage jewelry retailer, wanted to shift to a 100% e-commerce model, and SLTC supported this business objective by deploying paid social media ads, Google ads, and email marketing campaigns that resulted in over 200% growth in annual revenue.
Major Global Shifts
Changes in supply and demand, consumer confidence, employment, and wage changes, and even national emergencies will require you to make immediate and sometimes drastic changes to your marketing strategies. The COVID-19 pandemic, and its global economic impact, changed the way brands communicate with their customers and sell their products.
Steps to Pivoting your Strategy
In order to thrive, your marketing strategies should be adaptable are ready to capitalize on the market at any time. Here are five steps to pivot for a better outcome:
Identify the Gap
Pinpoint precisely what is going wrong or what needs to change. Use current data to get a better understanding of who your target audience is and what their needs are. Analyze what your direct competitors are doing and how you can do it better.
Create a New Plan
New objectives and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will be imperative to your new strategy and will be used as a benchmark for your success. New tactics should support these new objectives. Assign tasks to your team or consider outsourcing parts of the strategy that your team isn’t prepared to handle.
Ease In
Don’t dive into a new strategy; shift with a cross-fade approach that is less disruptive. You don’t want to cause revenue shock or put undue stress on your employees by changing your strategy too quickly. Continue to engage your target audience throughout the transition.
Reassess
Choose certain times to evaluate the impact of your strategy change. If the change isn’t working as expected after a reasonable amount of time, you may need to pivot further or change something else in your strategy.
Ramp Up
When the strategy pivot shows promise, invest the time and resources needed to ramp up to full steam.
If you are a brand or a company looking to hire a team of category growth experts to help you pivot, our team at SLT would love to speak with you. Contact us here to book a discovery call.