It is entirely possible that the marketing strategy which previously brought you tons of customers is no longer as effective as it used to be. Whether the customer base has shifted, or the way your prospects do their product research has changed, or new competitors have joined the market — what worked last year might not be working so well anymore.

Whatever the case, it’s important to look at your marketing strategy with a fresh new perspective in order to stay relevant in your market. Here are some signs your marketing needs an overhaul:

You’re getting contacted less

If there has been a noticeable decline in the number of customers seeking you out, you should probably take a step back and re-evaluate. Unless there has been a clear change in general economic trends (i.e., a recession), then the reason for the drop off is either because your marketing is not reaching the target audience or your competitors are addressing that audience more effectively than you.

Website visits are down

You should be using an app like Google Analytics (it’s free!) to monitor the traffic on your website at least weekly. If you see a decline in visitors perhaps it’s because the information on your website is getting stale. Or maybe it’s not optimized for mobile. Things to look at include the state of your SEO, traffic coming from social media and the frequency of your blog posts. Any or all of these factors can lead to a decrease in traffic. Your website is the face of your business and needs to be up to speed on the latest upgrades and updates to open your brand up to as many opportunities as possible.

Social network follows have not budged

You should be consistently gaining followers on your social media platforms of choice. Fortunately, most social networks are good about keeping you informed on new follows. Try to keep an ongoing record of the new follows so you can spot any trends — for instance, which posts generated more follows versus ones that were duds. Also consider joining a new network that your customers are active on, or freshening up your social media campaigns and profiles by trying out new tactics, messages and visuals.

Your competitors are doing just fine

Keeping track of your own performance metric is clearly vital to your success. Perhaps just as important is keeping track of your competitors’ performance. If your sales are down and your new inbound leads are lacking, it’s worth taking a closer look at the competition to see if they are having the same problems. If they aren’t, take note of what they’re doing differently so that you can quickly figure out a better way to do things.

About Sam Lauron: Sam Lauron is a Communications Associate at Manzer Communications. She supports clients with digital marketing, social media, blogging and tech PR activities. Swyft  provides digital PR and marketing services in Austin, Denver and Houston and for any national brands seeking rapid, sustained growth. Some of the services provided include content marketing, social media strategy and ad buys, email marketing, and media relations.