It sounds like a statement of the obvious, but if you continue to fish the same pond, day in, day out, you will eventually run out of fish.

The last decade in marketing has made many marketers lazy anglers.

What do I mean?

Social media platforms were new and fizzy ten years ago. People were just discovering them, using them, spending time on them. Email marketing was really coming into its own. Build a list and you’ve got your marketing sorted.

But growth on these platforms has stalled for a few years now. The pond hasn’t shrunk but it might just be possible we’ve caught all the fish we’re going to catch from it.

It’s a classic case of over-fishing.

It’s why international waters have fishing quotas. It allows the stock the ability to replenish.

So, fellow marketers, take a long hard look at how your budget is shaped and if you are not actively looking at extending the size of your pond (by which I mean, new customers, ones you are not already connected to, digitally speaking), then get ready for your own commercial recession.

We recently convinced a client to invest in a campaign that spanned a significant range of outdoor media, radio and print advertising. Prior to that sales had been sluggish. The impact was more than even we could have hoped for.

Over a 7 week period, new customer acquisition increased by 354% on the previous 10 months, with new customers representing 91% of all sales in that period.

Before the campaign? They were just fishing in their existing pond of social media channels and email marketing efforts.

The moral of the story? Advertising works.

Every purchase starts first with awareness. But if you are not raising that awareness with brand new customers, using a range of different media formats, your pond will be far too small for serious fishing .