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When is it time for a fresh tactic?

by Hopeless Bromantic
5 replies
This question is for the experienced online entrepreneurs.

Imagine you just came up with another killer idea for an online business. You've done this before, so you have good reason to believe that you can make it work with the resources you have. You create the business plan, design the site, get all your ads, PR, and SEO material ready, and finally you launch. You get decent traffic, and you keep your fingers crossed in hopes that your site will go viral. And then...thud. No conversions are coming in.

You don't panic, of course. For one thing, you're well aware that nobody bats 1000 in online marketing. For another, you can think of dozens, if not hundreds, of ways to tweak the site and/or its marketing collateral to make it more compelling to your target audience.

Now here's the dilemma. You don't want to make these changes before the existing campaign has run its course. The site will get "marketing ADD" and end up confusing and ultimately driving away all the repeat visitors. If you keep making changes too soon, you'll be forever trapped in that vicious circle. On the other hand, you don't want to waste time (and the money to keep the business running) by staying with an ineffective approach to conversion, long after it's had its day.

So, does anyone here have some general rules about the optimum time for a marketing or sales tactic to stay online before you make a change-up? When can you be sure it's not too soon?
#fresh #tactic #time
  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    I generally dont like hopping from tactic to tactic. I have a daily marketing plan that I follow that keeps me on track everyday, and that keeps me focus. Create a daily marketing plan for yourself, and you can avoid the "Marketing ADD".
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    • Profile picture of the author fedor50
      Originally Posted by Randall Magwood View Post

      I generally dont like hopping from tactic to tactic. I have a daily marketing plan that I follow that keeps me on track everyday, and that keeps me focus. Create a daily marketing plan for yourself, and you can avoid the "Marketing ADD".
      This. Hopping from shiny object to shiny object is NOT the answer to finding success online. Choose one proven method and stick to it, apply all of your effort to making it work. Buying WSO after WSO is Not the answer
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  • Profile picture of the author intergen
    It sounds like a funnel and conversion issue - not a traffic issue. I never wait. I split test from the beginning.

    I use Visual Website Optimizer and serve up 2 pages. The one that is winning the conversion is the one I serve up and tweak further. The other thing the VWO does is "click tracking" so you can see where people are clicking on your site and what is interesting them.

    If they are clicking through the first buy button, but not converting, then I look at the offer or the pricing. Obviously if they are not converting after the buy now button something is wrong with the value proposition.

    You need to continuously test the funnel and see where the drop off is and address specific areas of drop off.
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  • Profile picture of the author shane_k
    I would follow what Intergen says and test, test, test. And track, track, track.

    Testing and tracking will give you the information that will point exactly to where you need to fix things.

    For example, with email marketing you want to know...
    Are people receiving your emails?
    Are people opening your emails?
    if they are opening your emails, are they clicking on the links in your emails?
    if they are clicking on the links in your emails, are they then purchasing the offers that those emails are pointing them to?

    If people are receiving your emails, but not opening them then maybe you need to work on your subject lines.
    If people are opening your emails but not clicking on the links in your emails then you want to work on the content of your emails
    If people are opening your emails, clicking on the links, but not buying the offers then that is what you need to work on.

    If you have already went ahead and tested and tracked your sales funnel, ad copy, your offer, your emails, etc and you still can`t get things to improve then something is definitely wrong and I would probably move on.

    Yes you don`t want to jump around and have marketing ADD but at the same time you don`t want to keep trying to move forward with something that is not working.

    In the end it comes down to a judgement call. We can`t tell you to give it this much time, or that much time, because we don`t know which market you are targeting, what your offer is, and what your customers are like. If you are tracking and testing then you will and that info will give you an idea of when to move on.
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Wahlman
    If it's scalable, do it. If it's requiring 50+ hours a week with marginal returns. It's probably time to give it up or outsource it.
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