If your marketing strategy is not working, it's time to step back and figure out the warning signs. So many different things can go wrong with a marketing plan, such as low conversion rates on your website, an ineffective social media campaign, or inconsistent branding. This blog post will discuss some of those warning signs in detail so you can make changes before it's too late.

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Reduced Online Engagements Overtime

One of the main goals in marketing is to make your product or service as visible and engaging with consumers. However, if you do not see online engagement over time, it could signify that something needs to change about how you reach out to customers. 

Search engine rankings are about a lot more than just having the right keywords. You need to have engaging content that encourages discussions in other places, such as forums, reviews on news sites, online videos, and even social media. 

You can outsource marketing services, commonly with a competitive intelligence tool, to ensure your marketing performance is better. Even if you don’t see an increase in customers today, this is a long-term strategy that will pay off in the future.

No Reviews or Feedback From Existing Clients

Reviews and feedback are some of the most valuable tools that a business has when trying to grow. A good marketing strategy will include ways to gather reviews from existing clients and those who have not used your services yet so that you can make sure they know what kind of experience they should expect if they work with you.

If you see little or no reviews, this is a sign that the plan needs tweaking for it to work better. For example, you could consider incentivizing customers to leave feedback about their experience with your business.

Another possibility is that you are not providing good customer service to your clients. This can be a sign of more significant problems. If you aren't getting reviews, the most likely reason for this is that customers don't feel like they should leave feedback because there's nothing about their experience with your business worth talking about positively.

Reduced Website/Blog Traffic

The first thing that you should do is to check the analytics of your site. If there has been a sudden change in traffic, this could be a sign that something isn't working as it should. The next step is to look at your current keywords and see how many people go to your site from your keywords. You can then figure out how well your overall strategy is working by tracking the number of conversions you are getting and whether or not these numbers have also reduced over time.

Low CTR on Your Online Campaigns

A low CTR is an indication that your online content campaign (such as a PPC ad or SEO-optimized blog post) isn't converting viewers into customers. If you notice a low CTR, it's time to re-evaluate your strategy.

There Are Several Possible Causes for a Low CTR

First, you may have an ineffective CTA or call-to-action (CTA), such as not specifying exactly what your viewers will get when they sign up to learn more about the offer you're promoting. If it's unclear how clicking on the ad or blog post will benefit them, then you're unlikely to get many sign-ups.

Second, your ad or blog post may be irrelevant to the keywords that it's ranking for and generating traffic from. You could improve this by closely analyzing the search terms used in Google Analytics and ensuring they match up with what you're promoting on your ads/blog posts. 

Third, you may be targeting keywords that have a low search volume. You'll need to do some research on the average monthly searches for your target keywords before choosing them to avoid wasting money on ads with an unprofitable reach.

Note: Since Universal Analytics is getting sunsetted on the 1st of July, here's also a solution for finding keywords in GA4.

Conclusion

If the marketing strategy isn't working, then there are warning signs to look out for. If any one of these applies, it may be time to reassess your plans. Sometimes, it's not a bad idea to take some time and figure out what isn't working - or is underperforming - so that you can fix those problems before they start to hurt your bottom line.