3 Ways to Troubleshoot Your Marketing Challenges

When your marketing efforts are not working out the way you planned them in your marketing strategy, it can leave you feeling frustrated, defeated, and like something is broken. Even if your channel-based strategies should be effective, sometimes it takes stepping back and evaluating what’s working and not working in order to improve and overcome marketing challenges. In this blog post, I’m sharing 3 ways to troubleshoot your marketing strategies so you can get back on track quickly. 

3 Marketing Tips for Troubleshooting Challenges

#1: Start looking externally. 

When faced with marketing challenges, the first thing you should do is take a deep dive into your audience. What are their needs and wants? Where’s their head at? What are their behaviors and preferences? Is their behavior, whether directly or indirectly tied to you, indicative of why they’re not coming to you for something? 

Digging into your audience can be tedious, but it’s worth it. By understanding your audience and the way they think better, you can tailor your marketing efforts to appeal to them in a more effective way. Take the time to do your research, gather key data on your audience, such as demographics and search/buying patterns, and develop a deeper understanding of who they are and what they need.

#2: Simplify. 

The next marketing tip is to simplify. In the world of marketing, less is always more. It may feel counterproductive, but when you simplify your message and what you're doing and focus on fine-tuning what you strongly believe in (from a marketing standpoint), it'll give you a new lens to look through and a new perspective in your marketing efforts. Instead of trying to serve everyone, narrow your focus, focus on your target audience, and showcase what makes your product or service unique. This will help you stand out in a crowded market and make it easier for your audience to find you, understand your mission, and engage with your message.

#3: Look at your sales systems. 

The last tip is to look at your sales systems under a microscope to determine where the marketing challenge is coming up. When one is not working or pulling their weight, it can cause the other to suffer. While marketing and sales are different, your sales systems are where they need to come together. If your marketing is making moves by bringing in leads, but your sales aren't catching the ball and converting them, there's a disconnect. Similarly, if your sales team is making all the right efforts but is pulling the weight of marketing because your efforts aren’t generating leads, a shift needs to happen in your marketing strategy. In order to create a cohesive strategy that takes both marketing and sales into account, bring your teams together to troubleshoot, brainstorm, and ensure that your efforts are aligned and working towards the same goals. 

All in all, there is a difference between corporate marketing and sales-driven marketing. It can be easy to put more weight on one over the other. However, when faced with marketing challenges, it’s important to identify which one needs to balance out. By taking a step back, evaluating what’s not working, looking externally, simplifying your message, and evaluating your sales systems, you can troubleshoot your marketing challenges to create a marketing strategy that is in alignment with your business and your audience’s specific needs and patterns. Remember to stay focused and open to new ideas, as the marketing world is ever-changing, and in order to be successful, you have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone, try new things, evaluate, troubleshoot, and try again in order to achieve your goals. 

If you’re ready to find out exactly where your marketing efforts stand, take our FREE Marketing Self-Assessment to help you understand the strength of your marketing operations and reflect on the critical areas of your marketing strategy.