Rotate Your Campaigns to Increase the Yield

One of the most important innovations in the ancient world was the idea of crop rotation. It was probably developed in the Middle East in Roman times. In the Middle Ages the three-year rotation was practiced by farmers in Europe with a rotation of rye or wheat, followed by oats or barley, then letting the soil rest (leaving it fallow) during the third year. This practice gave many benefits including the reduction of pests, improved balance of soil nutrients and the replenishment of nitrogen. It improved the yield.

We can learn something from these principles. It is well understood in marketing that the same direct mail campaign will produce declining results as it is run over and over again. So we constantly look to refresh our marketing campaigns with creative ideas. The same idea applies to people and roles. As someone grows more experienced in a job they can become stale and jaded in their thinking. We all need new challenges. A simple rotation of responsibilities in the marketing department can sometimes work wonders.

But there is another lesson from the crop rotation concept that is often overlooked. The mediaeval farmers did not keep planting new types of crop each year indefinitely. They returned after three years to start the cycle again. How often do we go back and re-run a marketing campaign that was successful years ago? Most marketers would scoff at the idea. Things have moved on and what worked before might look old-fashioned now. But what is old hat for us is fresh to a new set of consumers. What if Guinness took the wonderful raging horses advert (tick follows tock.....) and reran it? Marketing critics would moan that it showed a lack of new ideas. But people (like me) who enjoyed it the first time around would welcome it back like an old friend and people who had not seen it before would be amazed at the brilliant direction and imagery.

What would happen if Heinz repeated their campaign promoting the slogan - Beanz Meanz Heinz? It was a big winner once and it could be again. Despite what your agency tells you the most important thing about a marketing campaign is not how creative, ground-breaking or cutting-edge it is. What matters is how effective it is.

Do you ever examine the really successful campaigns of the past to see what you can learn and re-use or do you constantly have to invent new approaches? Take a look at what really worked in the past, dust it down, bring it up to date and try it again. Here is my advice on what you should do with your current marketing methods:

1. Rank in order of effectiveness of all your current campaigns or marketing methods.
2. Stop doing the bottom 20%
3. Put more resources into the top 20%
4. Keep trying new things
5. Bring back something that worked in the past and try it again.

Finally try the idea of letting something lie fallow for a while. Give some of your best people a long break to refresh their batteries. Give some of your standard marketing methods a rest and then when you bring them back they will have a bigger bang.

Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creative thinking and innovation.

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