Due to the dramatic changes the world underwent during 2020, the business market was hit hard. With the COVID outbreak and the long-lasting quarantine, a lot of businesses had to lock their doors, and some are still trying to limit the damage. Under these circumstances, it’s not unusual to hear about unsuccessful digital marketing campaigns.
The following steps will help you rebound if you’ve initiated a failed digital marketing campaign:
- Dealing with Collateral Damage
- Making a Plan Of Action
- Putting Your Plan into Action
What’s important is that you don’t let yourself be discouraged. There have been a lot of big successes that were born out of spectacular failures, you just need to know how to use your negative experiences to help you stand up taller.
- Dealing with Collateral Damage
When your digital marketing campaign goes wrong, the first thing you want to do is minimize the losses and make sure you aren’t losing your clients due to your mistakes. In order to do that, you need to:
- Figure Out the Reason(s) Why Your Campaign Failed: This step can be the hardest to complete because to do this you’d need to look at your business and campaign objectively. You will want to take the point-of-view of an outsider and try to find the reason why your campaign failed.
The problem could be a simple, technical one, like not using the right tools. Maybe you were investing in social media while your clientele was email-based, or maybe your target audience was using websites other than the ones where you put your ads. Or, it could be related to your marketing plan being out of date or simply not being interesting enough to draw attention.
Another cause that could have been that fatal blow to your business marketing plan, is that the story your campaign has been communicating may be, offensive. No business needs that kind of bad press, but it can and has happened before, even to some major international corporations. In the end, mistakes can happen to anyone, but it’s the way you handle them that is the deciding factor.
- Collateral Damage: If you know you made a mistake, you’ll have to come up with a solution to repair the damage.
Generally, if it’s a mistake related to negative public relations (PR), you will have to be quick to respond and react with understanding, sincerity, and honesty. The worst thing you can do is try to fight back and defend your campaign; that will only bring more negative PR right to your doorstep.
If the mistake is more of a minor technical marketing error, then you’ll have to look at your options. Is the campaign too far gone and you should let it die down and look for a way to jumpstart a new one? Or is what you have salvageable?.
What if I Can’t Figure Out What Went Wrong?
If you can’t pinpoint why your digital marketing campaign failed, then you will want to experiment with the different tools you used until you find what hasn’t been working out. In the meantime, you may be able to find modified or improved methods to work with.
As you take the time to assess and test your marketing strategy, you will want to keep track of what worked out or not. You’ll find yourself slowly gaining an understanding of the situation and able to figure out what you need to do.
The two steps above can be hard to accomplish on your own because they may require a lot of analysis and statistics. Examining what aspect of your digital marketing campaign needs fixing and how to do it can be hard if you don’t know what you’re doing. But have no fear! There are companies specialized in offering professional marketing services that can give you a full analysis of your performance and provide guidance on how to repair your marketing campaign.
- Making a Plan of Action
Now that you have a clear idea about what you did right and what you did wrong, you have to make a plan of action. What will your campaign be about this time around? Will you keep some of what you started with? Are you going to begin with a completely new idea?
What’s most important is that your comeback sounds and looks fresh. Focus on doing what you’re good at. Whether you’re marketing your product or your services, you have to keep this in mind and not stray away from your strongest skills or your brand identity.
Digital marketing is based on a variable network, so using analyses from your previous campaign can help you understand what parts of your existing campaign to keep the same, what to improve, or what to remove.
You need to focus on what makes your business special in order to stand out from your competitors. Never shy away from showing that you learned from your mistakes. Proof of improvement is something that your clients rely on and trust. .
What Do I Do If I Can’t Come Up With a Plan of Action?
Sometimes when you’re pushed back a few steps, you’ll find that you’re hesitant to take another step, especially if this has happened several times before. This fear may be part of the reason why you can’t come up with a new digital marketing plan. If this is something you’re experiencing, this is what you can do to overcome the block:
- Get inspired by other successful marketing campaigns and think of what makes them a success.
- Think of what makes your business unique and special and try to come up with unique ways to showcase it.
- Research current marketing strategies. Following digital marketing trends can help you.
- Take baby steps. Making big changes all at once can be overwhelming, you can tackle the problems one at a time and go about solving them properly.
- Under any circumstances, creating or modifying a marketing campaign takes a lot of effort and time. Time that many independent business owners can’t spare; don’t be afraid to hire someone to help you out. If it’s in your budget, consider this option, because it could spare you a lot of time. Plus, letting professionals handle a situation improves your chances of success.
- Putting Your Plan Into Action
Don’t hold back in your marketing campaign! When you release your digital marketing campaign you don’t need to hold back, as long as you have a solid plan of action, all you need to do is follow through and do what you can to make it a success. But, even with a plan, you will still want to keep an eye on the situation in case you have to modify your plan occasionally. You need to keep track of how well-received your campaign is, whether it’s working well on the social media sites you chose, and whether or not people are responding well to your email marketing plan, for example. Also, you need to continue keeping in mind your client’s suggestions, their needs, and what might draw their interest as these preferences can change over time. Unfortunately, you can’t just sit back and do nothing after launching your campaign, you will have to monitor its progress. However, as long as you follow the steps above, you should be well on your way to having a very successful digital marketing campaign!
Sources: Keap