What Are Examples of Pivoting Marketing Strategies Quickly?

Shift to Offering Free Content

In my previous SEO agency, I found that trying to earn business through “SEO” was a long uphill battle, as experts in the field had two decades of ramp-up time. So instead, I switched my strategy to offering free content or content upgrades to those who could use a better solution. It worked very well.

Embrace Agility and Data-Driven Decisions

A memorable instance occurred when I was involved in a digital marketing campaign for a consumer product. The initial strategy was heavily focused on social media advertising and influencer partnerships. However, after the campaign's launch, we noticed that the engagement and conversion rates were significantly lower than anticipated.

Realizing the need for a swift pivot, we quickly gathered data to analyze what was happening. We discovered that our target audience was more active and responsive to email marketing and community engagement through forums and blogs, rather than social media platforms. This insight led us to shift our focus. We ramped up our email marketing efforts, tailoring our content to be more informative and engaging, and started actively participating in community forums and blogs related to our product niche.

The pivot paid off. We saw a marked increase in engagement and conversion rates, and the campaign ultimately met its objectives.

The key lesson from this experience was the importance of agility in marketing and the need to continuously monitor and respond to real-time data. It highlighted that while planning is essential, the ability to adapt quickly based on customer feedback and data is equally crucial. This experience underscored the importance of having a flexible strategy and being prepared to shift gears when the situation demands it.

Listen to Your Audience's Preferences

In the early days of our adventure travel company, we heavily focused on attracting young, solo travelers. However, we soon realized that families were showing a growing interest in adventure travel. This was a market segment we hadn't anticipated, and it required a swift pivot in our marketing strategy.

We quickly shifted our messaging to appeal to families, highlighting the bonding experiences and lifelong memories they could create through our services. We also adjusted our product offerings to include more family-friendly adventure packages.

The pivot was a success, resulting in a significant increase in bookings from families. This experience taught us an invaluable lesson: always listen to your audience. Their behaviors and preferences can provide important insights that drive your marketing strategy and business growth.

Adapt Quickly to Unforeseen Circumstances

During the onset of COVID-19, we had to rapidly pivot the marketing strategy for one of our clients. Our original plan focused on promoting in-person events and direct interactions, which became unfeasible due to lockdowns and social distancing measures.

We shifted to a digital-first approach, increasing advertising on social media for webinars and virtual events. The lesson learned was the importance of agility in marketing. Being able to swiftly adapt to unexpected circumstances and reassess the channels and messaging to suit the current environment is crucial.

Don't Overlook Reporting Capabilities

This year, my marketing team switched vendors for a content-syndication platform. This new platform had a ton of fantastic features and seemed to have everything we were looking for; however, upon implementation, we quickly discovered that the reporting features were lackluster and wouldn't continue to give us the insights that we were used to. Because of this, we had to restructure how we got our content consumption KPIs and figure out how to make them readily available to the sales team.

My recommendation: Just because a new MarTech product has a bunch of nice and shiny features, don't discount reporting or what you're used to having in your original platform. Don't assume anything!