3 Common Reasons Your Marketing Might Be Stagnant And How to Fix It

Nov 22

When I hear the word "stagnant”, it immediately makes me think of that cantankerous green ogre in Dreamworks' blockbuster movie, Shrek.

Remember the grumpy green ogre with the talking donkey who made candles out of his ear wax? (Now that's an image I have tried hard to erase from my mind).

However, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of stagnant is not quite that bad - it just means not flowing, stuck, or no growth.

If your marketing results have been failing to impress, or you're stuck at a ceiling, here are the three common reasons why - and how to fix them.

1. Tired Branding & Customer Experience That Isn’t Keeping Up With Modern Times.

When Eircom – Ireland's largest telecommunications company – shortened its name to Eir, it became the largest rebranding in Ireland in the last 20 years. The telecom giant was struggling with declining market share and an influx of new competitors. So not only did the telecom giant upgrade its services, but it transformed its entire brand identity and customer experience.

Even if you have exceptional recognition in your market and lead your field if you don't elevate your brand image to keep up with the changes, your customers will assume your products and services are out of date also. When you do a Transformational Rebrand like this one, approach it through the eyes of your customers first. What do they need tomorrow, and what will they expect in five years, ten years, and further?

2. Changing Consumer Preferences That Need To Be Incorporated

Domino's was at a literal loss when in 2010 it held only a 9 percent share of the pizza restaurant market. At Domino's Farms, executives had already admitted to themselves a more persistent long-term threat: The pizza wasn't very good. "When we did consumer tests, if they knew the pizza was Domino's, they actually liked it less than if they just thought it was a random unbranded pizza," one executive confessed. "We had somehow created a situation where people liked our pizza less if they knew it was from us. So yeah, that was a problem." Some of the more memorable comments: "The crust tastes like cardboard. The sauce tastes like ketchup." And: "This is an imitation of pizza."

The company changed all that by pivoting its branding and advertising by focusing on fixing what customers didn't like about their products. They enhanced the quality of the mozzarella and the flour, added garlic butter to the crust, and infused the marinara with flavor and sweetness. Then they embarked on a brutally honest ad campaign that was genius on so many levels.

The result? Today, the company holds a 18.8 percent share of the global market and the highest customer loyalty among pizza chains. It was also one of the first companies to use chatbots to take orders via social media, meeting customers where and how they spend their time.

3. A Restrictive View Of Your Value (Being Pigeon-Holed: Customers Don't Recognize Your Real Value)

Dropbox struggled with the perception that it was just a cloud-based file sharing service. They recognized their value was much greater and needed a way to strategically shift customer perception that it was not about syncing files, but syncing teams. This needed to come from both an updated brand design and a more powerful marketing message. Their old branding was, let’s just say, very blue and very dated. Remember this?

Here’s what Dropbox rebranded to:

Dropbox has now grown to be the second largest market player, second only to Google. From its founding in 2007 it now has over 700 million users, 15.49 million paying users (now that’s a good sized marketing funnel).

In Summary

These three reasons are the most common why your marketing might be stagnant - dated branding, changing consumer preferences and overly restrictive perception of your value. Quick question - now that you’ve seen some “behind the scenes,” marketing for these three companies, how has it changed your perception of them?