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The start of a new year has most of us thinking about things that need to change. Whether we make formal resolutions or not, it’s just a natural time of year to evaluate what we’ve done in the past and how we might need to change moving forward. This is true of marketing programs, as well. Many of you may be developing your yearly plans right now.

Along with this comes the desire to shake things up and do something different. Word of warning … don’t fix what’s not broken. Many years ago I learned this lesson when I walked away from a very successful marketing campaign because I, the agency team and the client had all become bored with it. We didn’t have anything new to work on, we were just executing more of the same. So we dropped it. Here’s the lesson I learned: We spend a lot more time with our marketing programs than our audience does. The new ideas we came up with never worked as well, and we constantly heard from the consumer that they missed the old work.

So are you tired of the standard informational lunch? Sorry, those work, and your next good lead has never been to one. The question to ask isn’t what can we do differently, but what works. If it works, keep doing it. If it didn’t work, ask why and address those issues.

Of course, there is a need for innovation and new ideas. The world changes and we need to keep pace. But there are some very solid constants in senior living marketing. In looking ahead to another tough marketing year, support the fundamentals and innovate incrementally through small steps, because as a friend of mine says, there’s nothing wrong with getting a 10 on a swan dive.

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