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»To sum up: you can't afford to stand still and rest on your laurels, no matter where you are or when.«

Turnaround

Happy are those who don’t have to change anything. When everything just works without much effort, and the company moves from record to record every quarter. Yes, that happens in growth industries. But even there it only lasts a few years, sometimes just months, until the market is saturated or interest has simply waned. That happens even if the product is unique and your brand has a dominant position. Because the copy cats will come quickly and you’ll be fighting a defensive battle. To sum up: you can’t afford to stand still and rest on your laurels, no matter where you are or when. You have to stay relevant, continue to be credible and keep attracting attention. And that is one of the ongoing tasks of marketing – in conjunction with product, R&D and CRM, of course. This must be part of the daily business, which is why you have to stay up to date every day and always know what is going on with the customer, the market, the media and the competition. In our world, which is changing faster and faster, where new channels and new trends come and go, you have to stay alert and adapt to the movements. Even better: anticipate the changes. And ideally, of course, if you set the trends yourself. Then you can grow and grow.

Unfortunately, reality often looks quite different. Growth targets are not met, market share falls, but management remains confident that the difficult situation is only a snapshot and that the wind will change again. I see this often enough. Optimism is a good thing, but it is not always appropriate. Eventually, hope dies and panic breaks out. And then, at some point, the words turnaround management are uttered, and the employees know what that means. Restructuring, cost reduction, layoffs, selling parts of the company, all with the goal of a reorganization. I myself have already been involved as an external CMO to successfully lead a company out of bankruptcy. But everyone knows: the later you take countermeasures, the harder it will be to get the company back into the black.

But it doesn’t have to come to a restructuring. Those who intervene early, who focus specifically on marketing in a phase of stagnation or weakness, have a very strong lever to stabilize sales and get back into growth.

I coined the term “marketing turnaround” for this approach. It means nothing more than giving marketing activities a new direction, consistently aligning them with customers, the market, the media and other framework conditions, with the aim of achieving a turnaround in sales and other marketing KPIs. It is therefore not a matter of a gradual change, but of a change of course on a turning point, which clearly takes into account the history and capacities of the company and its brand(s), but which, in its consequence, can also entail a cross-departmental change process.

The process begins with a thorough analysis of all the framework conditions in order to uncover weaknesses. The analysis is discussed with all stakeholders and initial approaches are explored to determine how change can be shaped. This may involve redefining the target group, repositioning, adopting a different advertising approach or selecting different target markets. It may also be necessary to revise the product portfolio. In most cases, it is a combination of different measures that are then tested and evaluated. At the end, implementation and continued performance measurement are carried out. This gives the company a new direction and a new future.