One of the articles I read over new year about marketing resolutions for 2013 suggested that “if you keep doing the same thing, you will get the same results”. Now, while I agree with the underlying sentiment (that you should always be looking for new and better ways), that particular statement isn’t true at all, especially in areas such as marketing where the techniques and services available continue to change steadily. As recently as 2002, a faxed mailshot which my company put together produced the most astonishing response I’ve seen from any marketing initiative in 25 years. If I was still doing fax mailshots ten years later, I doubt I’d be getting the same results. Unless I was marketing to accounts departments. Or lawyers.
I might even go as far as saying that more often than not, “if you keep doing the same thing, you will get worse results”. That’s because the options available to reach prospects are still expanding, and few are offering improved value for money as time goes on. Decreasing response can still offer a positive return on investment, of course. But not forever. Even within our own small area of expertise, search engine marketing, if we were doing the same thing for clients now that we did two or three years ago, the ROI wouldn’t be anything like as good. We’ve had to constantly up our game and take advantage of the new features and techniques available. Because many of the hundreds of thousands of other advertisers will do so, whether we do or not.
So are you still doing the same thing in 2013 as you did in 2003? Or even the same as in 2012? If you are, can you justify it?