Midyear Marketing Reset: 10 Considerations for Q3

As we near the halfway point in the year, it’s worth taking a fresh look at your current marketing plan to identify what’s working and what might need adjusting. It’s OK to retire events, ads, and tactics that aren’t delivering great ROI and instead focus on those that are.

Follow these steps to narrow your list to marketing tactics that work:

1. Work backwards—where did your last 20 good customers come from? Note the original source of each (trade show, referral, web conversion, etc.).
2. For customers that came from web leads, track the source back as far as you’re able through HubSpot, Google Analytics, or your preferred analytics platform. Was their first conversion on your website an RFQ, or was it a blog signup or white paper download?
3. Compare your target keywords to the areas of interest of those new customers. If you’re tracking keywords that are hard to win or bringing in poor-fit prospects, retire them.
4. Evaluate your blog posts. Which topics resulted in the least traffic and visits? Optimize these posts for keywords, re-promote or promote them through different channels, or stop writing on this topic.
5. Assess your social media posts. Which channels resulted in the least web traffic and leads? Rethink your approach or shift attention elsewhere.
6. Review your trade show presence. Which events did not result in new leads or improve engagement with existing key customers? Shift your time and spend to those with better ROI, or make it a priority to rethink this event.
7. Take a fresh look at your collateral. What can be repurposed for the web? What’s out of date? Retire anything that is no longer true or useful.
8. Look for details on your website and collateral that are out of date: fax numbers, old technologies or machinery, out-of-style logos, PR or news/events that are more than five years old. Update or toss them.
9. Find five items of clutter and throw them out. Too many links on your website homepage? Delete them or move them into dropdown menus. Trade show booth messy? Keep collateral and giveaway items organized, and bags and cell phones out of sight.
10. Spend less of your budget on things you can’t measure. Identify gaps in your data, and resolve to address them. Some simple updates might include:

• Phone log for customer service team
• Google Analytics
• Tracking URLs for banner ads
• Lead collection and follow-up process for trade shows
• HubSpot or similar marketing automation platform for social media, email marketing and website stats in one place

If you’re looking for help evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing plan, consider a Launch Team marketing assessment.