Don t Base Too Much on the Past

How else are you supposed to figure out if something is going to work other than looking at whether it worked or not in the past?

This is how you find out all sorts of different things in life. You can't know if something is going to work until you try it, and if someone else in the past already tried it and got it to work, than you can have a good idea that it'll work for you as well.

This is partially true but leaves out some very important little details.

The problem with applying logic like this to marketing is that the people you're going to be targeting are changing quite literally every day. Each day makes people a little older and a little wiser than they were the day before, and after enough time people start to become entirely different.

Trends in society changes along with styles and interests. What was popular today might literally be scorned tomorrow, and if you aren't keeping your eye on the ball you might end up finding out you're old news.

All of this needs to be understood before you get any kind of marketing done. Don't get into postcard printing based purely off of past success with them. Don't put up a bunch of posters just because they worked a year ago.

You need to keep up your research no matter how much of a sure thing your marketing appears to be. Even the greatest and most effective marketing push is only going to take a company so far if they aren't updating things.

Looking at the past is good, but only as a first step. You see what worked and then you take a solid look at the market. Perhaps two years ago a direct mailing campaign didn't yield any worthwhile results, but if you print postcards today and send them out you'll get some very solid sales from it.

The reason could be that before the community was less stable. People were moving in and out more rapidly, but over a few years everything settled down, increasing the number of people who will take a hard look at color postcards showing up in their mail.

The reasons why things change are quite literally limitless. You can't really track exactly why something is going to work one day and be a complete flop the next. All you can do is keep your eye on the market along with what everyone else is doing. Yes, look at the past, but never let the past completely dictate what you're going to do today.

Solid marketing will always be fluid. You have to remain fluid with it if you want to stay on top, and that means never making assumptions about the present based on your knowledge of the past.

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