The first stage in relocation is to collect as much information as possible. Let’s say your last campaign didn’t achieve its objectives and now you are behind target (whether that’s leads, sales or something else). To get back on track you need to understand ‘where you are’ by gathering information about:

• The campaign duration
• The channel(s) used
• The content and creative used
• The budget spent
• The metrics being tracked
• The KPIs achieved or missed.

Once you have all this information you might need to decide which information is most accurate and reliable. Assessing this campaign in relation to previous similar campaigns might give you a benchmark which implies that the campaign was off by a little or a lot. By this method you might conclude that your creative wasn’t engaging, or that your targeting wasn’t right.

Having identified ‘where you are’ you can move to the second stage of relocation; remapping. Remapping in marketing means taking the information you’ve gathered about the campaign in stage one and mapping this to your pre-written campaign plan. Maybe you’re only one month into a six-month plan or maybe you’ve let the campaign run longer than intended. Remapping allows you to assess the ‘planned route’ alongside the ‘actual route’ to confirm what went wrong, when and why.

Finally, you can start the final stage of relocation, which involves creating a plan of action. Based on the information you’ve gathered and the conclusions you’ve made, it may now be possible to:

• Continue along the same path, confident that performance will improve because you’ve switched to a more engaging piece of creative or content.
• Continue along the same path for a short period of time, with a redefined target audience and a new milestone to review and revise.
• Follow a new path altogether which you believe will achieve your objectives based on recent learnings.

Going off the path – or getting lost – can feel overwhelming and disheartening, but experimentation is a critical skill for marketing success. Not only will you learn how to deal with the situation better, but the art of relocating will improve your navigation and planning skills for the future. Don’t let the fear of getting lost stop you from starting the journey in the first place!