As a former CMO, I’ve seen and heard a lot of unique (and some downright crazy) marketing techniques along the way, and “True Confessions” is my way of sharing it with all of you. Like all good legends–marketing or otherwise– there’s always a mix of truth, exaggeration, outright fiction, and just plain wishful thinking. We’ll let you decide which is which below.
Ever tried to lose weight?
You want to drop 10 pounds. The first seven fall away no problemo. You’re feeling good. Proud of yourself, moving that scale. But that last three. . . man, they’re harder to drop than a bad habit. What was working for you before— easily, effortlessly, miraculously—no longer does.
So how about your marketing, then?
Your webpage had been chugging along nicely for months. It started out decently, and then you made some tweaks and it did even better. But lately . . . man, it’s impossible to move the dial and meet those KPI goals. Your qualified leads are up for a week or two and then tumble. You’re the textbook definition of diminishing returns. You’ve been thinking about doing a whole new web page entirely, but that’ll take too long for new creative and coding. And if it does even worse than the one running right now, well, then, you’re pretty [expletive deleted].
If I were a weight-loss guru or personal trainer, I would tell you you’re going through a phenomenon called a plateau. Your body gets into a groove with how you eat and exercise, and gets too efficient–thus, the diminishing returns. It needs to break the routine so you can start losing weight again.
So turn that thinking to all the effort you put into creating your website: at some point you have to break up the monotony. Your Personal Marketing Fitness Trainer (PMFT) would tell you to:
Re-assess your habits:
The Mayo Clinic would tell you to check your food intake and exercise journals to see if eating more and moving less have become your norm. Your PMFT wants to make sure you haven’t taken success for granted or let things slide that shouldn’t. When was the last time you checked in to see what prospects think about your page? Maybe things have changed? Maybe the competition is doing something more exciting?
Cut more calories:
Late afternoon lattés and midnight snacks aside, is your site bloated with excess information or pages that dilute the clear path to action for your customers? Be careful though: too few calories—or information—can leave your customers starving for more and going elsewhere to find it.
Challenge yourself:
At the gym, we tend to gravitate to the same exercise routine and even the same treadmill because it’s comfortable. Our muscles and brain go on autopilot. Working with a coach, or getting on the stationary bike, can reverse those diminishing returns and give you new perspective and motivation. Same with marketing! If your site isn’t performing, ask someone in a non-marketing role at your company what they think.
Better yet, ask your customers! WEVO makes that easy. See how visitors view your page (and your competitor’s pages), find out what works and what doesn’t and most importantly, see actual quotes from visitors. No food restrictions, no sweat.
Step on our pre-live conversion scale for numbers you’ll really love. To learn more about WEVO and Pre-Live testing, contact us.
About Janet
Janet was the first CMO of Constant Contact, and part of the team that created much of what is known as inbound marketing today. She has also held leadership marketing roles at what is now 3M MicroTouch and HP. After creating HSG, a product and marketing consulting firm, alongside fellow entrepreneur Nitzan Shaer, they soon realized that market research is long, expensive, non-actionable, and does not work at the pace of digital marketers. As a result, they created WEVO – the first company to optimize website experiences before going live. WEVO uses target audience testing to diagnose web pages without the need for live traffic. With actionable, validated insights, WEVO enables you to pinpoint reasons why customers aren’t converting, empowering marketers with a low-risk way to uncover why people take action.
