Doing the same thing for how long?

One definition of insanity is to keep doing what you’ve been doing and expect different results.

Robin Cangie makes a similar point with “it’s not the metrics. Your marketing just sucks“.

So if you’ve been using Facebook for your business for 6 months and got nothing in your business to show for it. Does it make sense to keep posting on Facebook every day – or is it time to look at other options?

Maybe your Facebook campaign isn’t working because

• your target audience doesn’t use Facebook
• your messages are too social and not enough about your business industry/expertise
• your profile is all about you and not helping customers
• it leads to a website that isn’t good at converting leads to sales
• one of many other possibilities

Measuring marketing (whether social media or otherwise) is important, but not more important than running good marketing efforts in the right place at the right time (yes, the 4 Ps of marketing still apply).

Every time your marketing results are less than expected (or desired), you need to decide whether the poor results are due to a short time frame (looking at results too soon can be misleading), inaccurate measurements, a poor campaign or something else. From that, you can decide to continue the marketing, adjust it or stop it.

Going back to our Facebook example, something has to change. Maybe it is move to another social media channel (where your audience actually spend time) or maybe it just needs a new approach.

“There’s no point flogging a dead horse” applies to marketing, too. However, you must give each campaign a chance – no additional sales after a week on Facebook doesn’t mean Facebook is a poor strategy for your business. Sometimes it is a slow process to see results from our actions.

How do you judge when something has been tried long enough to move onto a new strategy? Or do you just keep trying the same thing even when there is little chance of success?