I have spent the past few weekends urgently trying to complete a home fix-up project. It was a project that took three weekends to complete. I will tell you I intended to do all of my work much earlier in the summer. On Memorial Day weekend, I thought I would get started, but other things crowded out my project. Then came July 4, but still, there was no action on my part. Labor Day rolled around the first Monday of September. As I was sitting on my deck that evening, a chorus of crickets started chirping as the sun went down. I love to sit out under the stars and listen to the crickets. However, there were hurricane warnings filling the news that evening. Hurricane Dorian was blowing the Bahamas apart on Labor Day weekend. Yet, there were no hurricane winds where I was sitting that night, just a light late-summer breeze. As I listened to the crickets, it suddenly dawned on me that change was coming. Even though it was summerlike and peaceful where I was sitting for the moment, things were about to change. In a few short weeks, the weather would change. Storm winds would blow and frost would kill the crickets! I suddenly felt the urgency to get that project completed.

Now let’s compare that to your marketing efforts. Too often, there is a complacency that settles in when we are making marketing plans. We do the same things we did the year before because it is easier to pull the same old rabbit out of the hat than to create new tricks. So we put out the same content, host the same golf tournament, keep the same trade show display and bore your clients to death! If that is the way you make your marketing plans, let me say that is a plan that will lead to disaster! Marketing is at its best when it is at the leading edge of change.

Here are a few things to consider when you are making marketing plans.

Think about what makes the customer say, WOW!

What would really catch the attention of your customers? What would cause a buzz amongst them? Incorporate this into your marketing plans. Marketing is charged with calling attention to your brand. When you have done the same old thing again and again, it loses its WOW power. That is why something new is so important to your marketing efforts. So what would make them stand up and take a long look at your brand?

What’s new?

Is there something new in what you are selling? Some industries lend themselves to new products on a cyclical basis (think car models, for instance.) Other industries are much more staid in their product and service offerings. If you are selling the same thing from one season to the other, you are going to have to think creatively to get your customers to notice you. However, some times old things can be repackaged and sold as something new if you add a little creativity. It is a good idea to change your look every now and then. Think about consumable products, such as soft drinks. They change their packaging for specific seasons, mix up their look a bit without completely changing their brand. They add a little creativity to the mix and their customers buy it.

So what?

Whenever we are making marketing plans, we have to ask a key question: so what? So we change our campaign slogan and refresh our look, will it have any impact on our customers or will they simply shrug it all off, having no impact? It is every marketer’s fear that their marketing efforts will fall with a thud before their customers. You can alleviate some of the risk of marketing by doing a test marketing campaign before you charge ahead and make a big splash with your entire marketplace. This is commonly done with large consumer products. This will tell you a lot about what will work and what will not, but it takes planning and time to make a test market study work. It can be done on a much smaller scale by talking to a couple of clients and asking them to give their opinions of your marketing campaign. Take heart at what they tell you, because it is your customers who have the ultimate say in what is WOW-worthy and what is not.

It is fall. Frost is soon going to kill the crickets, storms are going to blow in and change is coming for your marketing. Are you ready?