There’s a certain comfort in the familiar. Unfortunately, familiar isn’t always a good thing, especially when it comes to your marketing strategy. Despite your best intentions, it can land you in a great, big marketing rut.
Maybe that’s where you find yourself today. Maybe that’s why you’re here, looking for answers.
It’s time to evolve!
Now, take a deep breath and step outside your comfort zone as you get unstuck and turn your marketing around.
Take a step back.
Sometimes when you find yourself in a rut – any rut – the best thing you can do is walk away for a while. When you are too close to a situation it’s easy for your view to become skewed. Walk away, put some distance between yourself and your marketing strategy for a day or so. Give yourself at least 24 hours of complete separation. This means you don’t think about it, talk about it, nothing.
When you return, you’ll be refreshed and have a different perspective.
Seek out some fresh inspiration.
There is nothing wrong with checking out other marketing strategies to get a little inspiration. Look around at other companies’ social media accounts and campaigns. While it isn’t kosher to copy them, you can emulate them. In other words, you can take the best parts and modify them to fit your own purposes. There are some pretty awesome, creative minds out there. Tap into that.
Chances are, once you start looking around inspiration will grab you and your creative juices will start to flow. Let them.
Don’t let fear hold you back.
Fear is not natural; it is paralyzing. Remember, fear is a choice. When you choose to let fear rule over you, you are choosing to keep yourself stuck in that rut. Is stepping out of your comfort zone unnerving? You bet it is. But you can’t stay where you are just because you don’t like that fish out of water feeling. Fear will hold you back and keep you stuck, guaranteed. You can start as big or as small as you like – as long as you start.
If you are going to break free, if you are going to evolve, you have to live bold.
Ditch what isn’t working.
If you are running any marketing campaigns, then you are likely monitoring those campaigns to see what’s working and what isn’t.
If you aren’t, you need to start – today.
Review your analytics closely to identify trends. Look for elements that are working in your marketing and find what isn’t. No matter how attached you are to the strategy or how much you like it, if it isn’t effective then it needs to go. All too often well intentioned people will hang onto something that just doesn’t work. Sometimes they are afraid of change, sometimes they don’t want to give up. What’s important to understand is, this isn’t giving up, it’s growing up (your business).
Keep what’s working and ditch what isn’t then watch your marketing numbers take off.
See your strategy through new eyes.
Try stepping back and viewing your strategy from a different vantage point. Maybe look through the eyes of a customer or a prospect. Or just take a completely objective view. If you can turn loose of any predisposed perceptions and just see it for what it is, things will start to jump out at you. You will be able to see what needs to be changed or strengthened and you’ll see what is killing your efforts.
Then you have to take the brave step to change it.
Relax, breathe, repeat.
Change is stressful for most people. Creating marketing copy and developing strategies can be a rather emotional process. Face it, when you put that strategy to paper and put it out there, to some degree it’s personal. Then to know that the success of your business is riding on your efforts, well that can be downright unnerving!
It’s easy to succumb to the pressure of creating effective strategies and just plain getting it right. It can stress you out in no time. But all that does is turn your creative flow to sludge.
So, relax and destress. Take a deep breath. Now repeat until the tension melts away. NOW you can get to work!
Would you like some help creating your marketing copy? Sometimes an objective third party can inject new life into your marketing and catapult you right out of that rut. WriterAccess as a bevy of clever, creative writers who are ready to help you evolve and get out of your marketing rut. Let us help you write the next chapter of your brand’s story.
Stephanie M is a writer living in East Central, Alabama, but she didn’t always lead such a peaceful, carefree life. A few years ago she made a daring escape from the “cube farm” at a Federal Agency in Washington, D.C. (after eight very long years) where she worked. as an analyst focusing on disaster response, technical writing, program management, and FOIA.
