I was sent a corporate email the other day. It looked the same as every email blast I get from this company. They use a campaign slogan on every one of their marketing pieces. The problem is, it’s the same message they have been sending out for the past several years. No new message, no new services, nothing but the same old stuff!

In marketing, repetition is a good thing, until it isn’t any longer. In my last article, I talked about the importance of repeating your marketing message so people not only remember it, but also believe it. But every marketing message has a life cycle – a shelf life. Your marketing message can run out of gas. Before your message loses its impact, make sure your marketing is refueled.

There are two critical questions you should ask yourself before you start a marketing campaign: how long can we ride this and when will we know we need to make a change? How long depends on the response you are getting from your target market. If the people you are trying to reach are continually taking action towards a sale based on your marketing message, keep pushing the message. However, there will come a point when you have saturated your target market and you will see the effectiveness of your message start to decline. If you wait until this point to make a shift, you have waited too long. The best time to work on the next best thing is when you reach a plateau in responses. Getting ahead of the decline is essential to keep your message fresh and your brand in the mind of your customers.

To make this happen, you have to keep a close eye on the measurable results you are getting in the steps to a sale. Most sales cycles look similar to this: your marketing produces interest from a prospective customer and they become a lead. The person may seek out more information and show that they are looking for a solution, which your brand can fix, which would make them a qualified lead. From there, there is a discovery phase – exactly what do they need? This is followed by a price quote. There may be some haggling over pricing, but the final step is to close the sale, making them a full-fledged customer. Marketing has a role in helping a customer achieve the next level on the steps to a sale. All of this should be measured in this way – how did we market to the customer and did we get the desired response? Not every prospective customer is going to go from a lead to a closed sale, but are you seeing enough activity to achieve your sales goals? At the point you see it level off, you have to make a change in your marketing.

Of course all of this will not happen if you are not measuring the response. This is critical to keeping your brand message fresh in the minds of your customers. If you do not, you will never have any kind of gauge on when to make a change. It is the same as a gas gauge in a car that stops working – it is a guessing game. Guessing never has made for good marketing practice. Keep your marketing moving forward by keeping it fueled up in the thoughts of your customers.