Why legacy marketing habits quietly erode results over time.

There may be no more dangerous sentence in retail than:

“We’ve always done it this way.”

It sounds harmless. Sometimes it even sounds reassuring.

The advertising has worked before. Customers recognize it. Employees know how to execute it. Nobody has to spend much time thinking about it.

And that is precisely the problem.

Marketing habits can become remarkably comfortable. The same promotions run every year. The same newspaper ads appear before the same holidays. The same emails go to the same customer list. The same percentage-off offers appear during the same weeks.

Eventually, marketing stops being something the retailer is actively managing and becomes something the retailer simply repeats.

The calendar starts making the decisions.

Meanwhile, customers change.

Media changes.

Competitors change.

Technology changes.

The only thing that doesn't change is the marketing plan.

Yesterday's Success Can Become Tomorrow's Trap

Most outdated marketing programs didn't begin as bad ideas.

Quite the opposite.

They often survive because they once worked extremely well.

Maybe a newspaper insert produced a huge weekend 15 years ago. Perhaps a direct-mail postcard generated an excellent response. A twice-a-year clearance event may have become an important traffic driver.

Success encourages repetition.

But repetition isn't proof that something is still working.

Suppose a retailer spends $15,000 every year on a particular promotion because “we always do it.”

Ask a few questions.

How many incremental customers did it generate last year?

How much incremental sales volume?

What was the gross margin on those sales?

How many customers would have purchased anyway?

Did the promotion acquire new customers or primarily discount purchases to existing ones?

If nobody knows the answers, the retailer doesn't have a marketing strategy.

It has a tradition.

Traditions are wonderful for Thanksgiving dinner.

They are a questionable way to allocate an advertising budget.

The Customer Moved. Did Your Marketing?

Consider how dramatically customer behavior has changed.

Twenty years ago, a retailer might have depended heavily on newspaper advertising, radio, direct mail and Yellow Pages.

Today, a customer may discover a store through Google, Instagram, Facebook, an online review, a text message from a friend or a recommendation generated by an AI assistant.

The customer may visit your website before ever entering the store.

She may check whether you carry a particular brand.

She may look at your reviews.

She may check your hours.

She may look at photographs of the store.

She may compare you with three competitors without leaving her sofa.

The buying process changed.

Marketing has to change with it.

That doesn't mean every traditional marketing medium should be abandoned. Direct mail can still work beautifully. Radio can still work. Newspaper advertising may still make sense in certain markets and for certain demographics.

The question isn't whether something is old.

The question is whether it works.

“We Know Our Customer” Can Be Dangerous Too

Experienced retailers often know their customers extremely well.

That is an enormous competitive advantage.

It can also create blind spots.

“Our customers don't use Instagram.”

“Our customers don't buy online.”

“Our customers want coupons.”

“Our customers read the newspaper.”

“Our customers don't respond to text messages.”

Maybe.

But when was the last time you checked?

A retailer may be accurately describing the customer of 2018 while marketing to the customer of 2026.

Even more important, existing customers aren't the entire market.

If your marketing is designed exclusively around the behavior of your current 65-year-old customer, how are you going to acquire the 45-year-old who could become a customer for the next 20 years?

A marketing strategy has to serve today's customer while developing tomorrow's.

Promotions Can Train Customers

Legacy marketing becomes particularly dangerous when it revolves around predictable discounts.

Customers learn patterns.

If you run 20% off every Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Veterans Day, your regular customers eventually figure something out:

Wait.

Why buy the shoe today for $150 if experience tells them it will probably be $120 next weekend?

At that point, the promotion is no longer creating demand.

It may simply be shifting demand from one week to another while reducing margin.

The retailer thinks the sale is driving business because Saturday is busy.

But perhaps some of those customers would have purchased Thursday at full price.

A successful promotion shouldn't be judged only by how much business occurred during the promotional period.

The better question is:

How much business occurred because of the promotion?

Those are not the same number.

Every Marketing Expense Should Have to Re-Earn Its Job

Retailers regularly evaluate employees.

They evaluate vendors.

They evaluate inventory.

They evaluate stores.

Marketing expenditures deserve the same scrutiny.

Imagine that every marketing program had to reapply for its job each year.

Why should we continue spending money on you?

What did you accomplish?

How do we measure your results?

Could another marketing investment produce a better return?

That doesn't mean changing everything every year.

It means nothing gets permanent tenure merely because it appears on last year's marketing calendar.

Some programs will easily justify themselves.

Others may need modification.

A few should probably be thanked for their years of service and escorted gently from the building.

Test Instead of Guessing

The alternative to “we've always done it this way” isn't “let's change everything.”

That would be equally foolish.

The answer is testing.

Take part of an existing marketing budget and experiment.

Test two email subject lines.

Test a text-message campaign against an email campaign.

Test an offer in one store but not another.

Test a promotion with a discount against one built around early access or a gift with purchase.

Test different customer segments.

Test different digital audiences.

Then measure the results.

Retailers sometimes avoid testing because they are afraid the new idea might fail.

But failure on a small test can be extremely inexpensive education.

I'd rather discover that a $500 experiment didn't work than continue spending $20,000 annually on something nobody has measured for a decade.

Don't Confuse Activity With Effectiveness

Marketing departments and retailers can become extremely busy.

Emails are sent.

Social posts are created.

Ads are placed.

Events are scheduled.

Coupons are printed.

Promotions are launched.

Everyone is doing something.

But activity isn't the objective.

Results are.

A retailer could send 100 emails a year and accomplish less than another retailer sending 30 carefully targeted messages.

More marketing isn't necessarily better marketing.

The objective is to put the right message in front of the right customer at the right time through the right medium and produce a profitable response.

Everything else is motion.

Keep the Experience. Lose the Habit.

There is tremendous value in experience.

A retailer who has operated for 20, 30 or 40 years possesses knowledge that cannot be downloaded from a marketing textbook.

The mistake is allowing experience to harden into habit.

“We tried that in 2012” isn't necessarily a reason not to try something in 2026.

The technology may be different.

The customer may be different.

The execution may be different.

You may be different.

Likewise, “this has always worked” isn't evidence that it still works.

Measure it.

Challenge it.

Test alternatives.

Keep what performs.

Modify what can perform better.

Stop doing what no longer earns its keep.

The most dangerous marketing programs aren't necessarily the spectacular failures. Those usually get noticed and corrected.

The more dangerous ones are the programs that quietly become a little less effective every year while continuing to consume the same dollars, time and attention.

Nothing crashes.

Nobody sounds an alarm.

Results simply erode.

And because the decline happens slowly, everyone gets used to it.

That's the dangerous comfort of “we've always done it this way.”

Sometimes the most expensive marketing decision a retailer makes is the decision nobody remembers making at all.

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About the Author

Alan Miklofsky is a semi-retired shoe industry consultant and the former owner of Alan's Shoes in Tucson, Arizona. During nearly 40 years as an independent footwear retailer, he served 29 years on the National Shoe Retailers Association Board of Directors, including as Chairman from 2009 to 2011. Miklofsky now advises independent retailers and footwear companies on merchandising, inventory management, marketing, operations and profitability. He writes and speaks regularly about the challenges and opportunities facing independent retail.