When my brother was little, he stopped playing board games for a while.

As a ruthless big sister, I rarely let him win (if you’ve ever tried to throw a game of Snakes and Ladders, you’ll know it’s impossible). And while he did beat me fair and square sometimes, he felt the heartbreak of losing far more intensely than the joy of winning. So, we stopped playing to remove the risk of him losing.

As a financial planner, you are no doubt aware of loss aversion and how this mindset can impact an investment strategy and a wider financial plan. However, you might not realise that loss aversion can have a similar effect on your marketing strategy – leading you off course and stifling your business’s growth.

Worrying about “wasting” resources on marketing that doesn’t achieve your goals can trigger a freeze, fight, or flight response. Here’s how each of these reactions can impact your marketing strategy and how you could overcome a loss aversion mindset.

1. Freeze: You choose to do nothing rather than risk a loss

If you’re scared of getting your marketing wrong, and therefore wasting time and budget, you might default to doing the same things you’ve always done.

But if you only do what you’ve always done, you’ll only get what you’ve always got.

If you want to grow your business, you’ll likely need to take some marketing risks. Typically, this involves an element of trial and error as you try out different tactics and learn what works. Of course, that could mean occasionally spending resources only to achieve middling results, but without taking that risk, you might never learn what works for your business and your audience.

What’s more, “freezing” doesn’t guarantee you’ll maintain your current marketing results. You might be standing still, but the world around you is evolving. Your audience’s habits, preferences, and priorities are constantly changing, as are the marketing tools available.

By standing still, you could end up left behind.

To thaw out your marketing strategy, you might start small by taking low-effort, low-risk chances. For example, you might post something a bit different on LinkedIn, publish a wider variety of blog content, or try out a new email marketing campaign.

By dipping your toe in the water, you could build your confidence and tolerance for marketing risks, while learning more about what resonates with your audience. That way, you can gradually build up to a full marketing strategy that keeps your business moving forward.

2. Fight: You keep going with poor-performing marketing for too long

In some cases, you might continue investing time and budget into a marketing campaign or channel that clearly isn’t working.

This approach is effectively throwing good money after bad, as you fight to turn losses into positive marketing results.

For example, you might keep a weeks-long, multi-channel marketing campaign with limited results running in the hope of a sudden uplift in performance – despite all the data suggesting it isn’t hitting home with your audience.

Naturally, this can compound your losses as you continue focusing on low-performing projects. You could lose the time and money invested in the project itself, as well as the opportunity to try something else that might perform better.

Rather than viewing poor performance as a loss or a failure, try to approach these results as a lesson. By examining your analytics and carefully considering why your marketing didn’t achieve your goals, you can gain valuable insights to help you plan your next marketing move.

3. Flight: You pull the plug before your marketing has had a chance to work

Conversely, loss aversion could make you too eager to pull the plug on low-performing marketing.

While, as described above, this could be the right course of action in some circumstances, in other cases you may abandon your marketing strategy before it’s really had a chance to make an impact.

For example, you might determine content marketing isn’t right for your business after just a couple of blogs, or give up on social media when your first few posts receive limited engagement.

Just as with investing, marketing strategies often perform best when followed over the long term. You might think you’re cutting your losses by abandoning your plan, when really you’re just removing the chance for your marketing to grow.

Remember, your early results are not your end results. Marketing often takes time to pick up the pace, so try to be patient and focus on tweaking, rather than abandoning, your strategy.

Knowing when to take your marketing strategy back to the drawing board and when to stick with it can be complex. The decision may rely on your marketing expertise, analysis, and risk appetite. But as a financial planner, you may feel ill-equipped to make these calls when you’re focused on driving results for your clients.

Keep your loss aversion in check and your marketing strategy on track

At Yardstick, our dedicated team of experienced marketers supports financial planners in growing their businesses through impactful marketing. Using our extensive expertise in financial services marketing, we can support you in defining a marketing strategy that’s tailored to your business and audience.

Staying by your side for the long term, we can help you refine your strategy as your marketing’s performance, your business, and your audience evolve. So, you can take a chance on new marketing approaches, with the guidance of our experts to keep your loss aversion in check.

Email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk to learn more.