How Tunnel Vision May Harm Your Marketing Campaigns

 Tunnel vision can have its benefits in marketing, but it can also be a total detriment. Here are some things to consider.

 

What is Tunnel Vision?

 

   Tunnel vision is a dedicated, absolute focus on one item or activity. For instance, let's say you spend ten hours per day putting golf balls at a local course. You'd have tunnel vision focus on putting. While you'd end up being a great putter, your other skills, such as a chipping and driving, would stagnate or even diminish without any applied practice. 

 

   This happens with marketing campaigns as well. Businesses find success with one plan or idea, then stick to it no matter what, even if there are better options. The problem with tunnel vision is that you miss certain details through your intense focus. Even though you may have a great understanding of how one tactic has worked for you before, you may miss an amazing opportunity for expansion through alternate, possibly better, strategies. 

   

When Is Tunnel Vision Good or Bad 

 

 

    Tunnel vision is best employed when all other options are exhausted. For example, let's say you already know that social media marketing hasn't helped much. You've tried multiple different approaches, but nothing's improving. Once you've crossed off a bunch of different tactics that haven't worked, maybe you find that only one or two tactics are increasing your customer base. You could then construct a combined plan using those two tactics, and feel confident in using full focus to maximize them. (At least while you're still trying new strategies and tactics, which you should always be doing.)

 

    On the other hand, tunnel vision can be horrible if you slip into it prematurely. This could be choosing to focus solely on social media before attempting other avenues. While those avenues may end up failing, you won't know until you try them.      

 

    As stated in the last paragraph, even if something has worked before, you should still keep trying new strategies and approaches. While tunnel vision can build skills and abilities in shorter time periods, you should never stop trying new things. 

How Consumers are Affected by Your Tunnel Vision Marketing

 

   As with all things, consumers can grow bored with the same marketing campaigns or ideas being repeated nonstop. Whether it's similar blog posts, a social media or email campaign, or even YouTube ads, eventually they'll grow exhausted through familiarity.

    Instead, mix your strategy up a bit, and see how you can improve on what's currently working. For instance, maybe you built a masterful paid ads campaign that doubled your business growth. Now, let's say the growth is slowing down, and you want to shift your campaigns into a new direction. You could try new ad layouts, different writing, or even new keywords to expand your campaign. Plus, by doing this, you could find a whole new audience who's unaware of your existence. Keep that in mind!

How to Change Your Mindset to Reverse Tunnel Vision

    Awareness is the number one way to combat any negative tunnel vision. To do this, set a schedule where you evaluate all of your marketing plans or strategies. Maybe this is once a week, or even once per month, but either way, check in and see what you're doing. You could even make a list of tactics to try out in the near future and choose one each month. Not only will you have a chance to stumble across new ideas or avenues, but you'll start to notice how much focus you're putting on certain things while your tunnel vision is preventing you from seeing others. 

    Another way is to set specific learning methods for each specific marketing team member. For instance, you could have John take some time to develop his social media skills, while Maria develops her paid ads skills. By doing this, you're allowing your entire team to find new ways of improving the business's overall marketing, and you won't rely on only one single tactic or campaign when your team members are finding new methods. Basically, knowledge and experience will help you move forward.

 

In Summary,

    While tunnel vision isn't inherently bad, it's much better to trade a little focus for a better overall marketing strategy. And even if you have low, short-term losses, you could have insane long-term growth. 

    If you evaluate your marketing plan and find that you're too reliant on only one or two things and haven't tested much, start testing the other avenues to see how useful they can be. Since each business is different, you'll have to learn this stuff for yourself, but most tactics can help for one thing or another. 

    P.S. If you need help with breaking free from tunnel vision, get in touch with Bedford 360 and we'll help you find a more structured way of implementing new tactics!