If you’re doing things correctly, a lot of hard work and planning goes into your marketing strategy. Each of the four Ps is workshopped and debated until a complete strategy comes together. Once your initial marketing strategy is in place there are two extremes you can take:
- Set it and forget it
- Continuously tinker and update
On one hand, you put so much thought and effort into it that there shouldn’t be any reason to need adjusting throughout the year. On the other hand, digital marketing moves so fast that if you don’t constantly change your business will fall behind. Which hand should you trust? There’s merit to both, plus various pieces of the digital strategy require different levels of attention. Three of the overarching pieces are broken down below do help you figure out how often to update your strategies.
Company vision and positioning – Change Sparingly
Vision and brand positioning are both long-term strategies, so let them be long-term. Both are designed to keep companies ahead of the industry curve. For most industries, there aren’t major shifts occurring on a regular basis; disruption doesn’t happen overnight. Of course you shouldn’t set a five-year plan and then leave it alone for five years—evaluate overall company direction yearly, or every six months for volatile industries. Big picture strategy takes time to develop. Too much tinkering could hinder any real value from materializing. Take it slowly and manage decisions based on sound data and impending industry shifts.
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Static digital messaging – Change as needed
Some content is expected to be fairly consistent. Users don’t expect to see something new every single time they visit your website or landing pages. In fact, it would be a jarring experience to see a completely rearranged homepage with each new visit. The content on your website fulfills two main functions: providing users with the information they need and delivering it in an SEO-friendly way. Updating should only be to serve a better experience for users or for Google. Both require diving into analytics to inform any needed updates—which is most effective with at least a month of data to analyze. Monitor your analytics and traffic regularly for spikes and valleys*. Then consider updating website content every 4 to 6 months based on that monitoring.
*If for some reason you have a Google penalty, or any extreme loss of traffic, update as soon as possible.
Real time tactics and content – Change regularly
The speed and targeting of digital marketing channels like social media allow you to gain tons of insights in a short amount of time. You can very quickly tell if males age 18-25 don’t respond to your Facebook ads. Don’t give up after one post—if one post doesn’t perform well with that group, test new copy or visuals first. But after a few posts of similar results, it’s ok to shift your strategy to a new audience.
Each social network is different, so it’s important not to automatically make changes across the board. Social insights can help inform email marketing, paid search and blog content, but it should be taken with a grain of salt. Always test assumptions and wait to make sweeping changes until there’s sufficient data.
