Now is the time of year when many marketers are thinking about where they’ll focus their marketing efforts in the new year. When our latestsurvey asked marketing leaders in public safety “How does your organization handle marketing and communications strategy?”, we didn’t expect the answers we got. Nearly one-third said they “tend to repeat what [they] did last year.” The survey allowed multiple answers to the question and, in addition, 32% said they “develop/refresh [their] strategy every few years.”
The truth is, your marketing and communications strategy needs more attention than that. (It doesn’t necessarily need an annual overhaul, by the way; but we’ll get to that later.) If you’re someone who tends to rinse-and-repeat when it comes to your strategy and tactics, we get it. We know what it’s like to balance competing priorities and limited budget and resources (65% of respondents told us the latter is their biggest challenge). It’s easy to keep doing what you’ve been doing, especially if you’re seeing some results.
But there are some real risks to putting your marketing plan on repeat. Here are a few to consider:
- Applying the same tactics over time doesn’t mean you’ll continue to see the same results. This is why it’s so important to regularly measure what you’re doing and choose meaningful metrics.
- Your customers can develop “message blindness.” When tactics are overused, they may have less impact because they become like wallpaper.
- The market has moved on, but your creative and strategy haven’t so you’re potentially missing opportunities. (More on this below.)
- Focusing on “the same old, same old” doesn’t leave room for the new. Always allow space in your plan to try something different. Maybe that’s geofencing your ads to make them more targeted; becoming a sponsor on a conference app; comparing how videos on YouTube vs. Reels perform; or deepening your understanding of AI-led workflows for creating content. This doesn’t need to be a big spend or a time-intensive lift and it can lead to meaningful insights.
What’s on the mind of public safety?
Public safety is a different animal. You already know that sales cycles tend to be significantly longer than in the private sector. Also, decisions about what to buy and from whom are typically made with a lot of care (not to mention many stakeholders). There’s good reason for this. Chiefs and other leaders must balance risk of all kinds against resources that are almost always stretched.
Given these factors, it’s tempting to think that because the fire service, law enforcement, 911, and EMS tend to move more slowly, little or even nothing is changing in their world. Not the case.
If your marketing plan and strategic goals don’t reflect the current realities and pressures your customers are facing—whether local, regional or national—you’re simply not optimized for your market. For example, in 911 and emergency communications, the consolidation of public safety answering points (PSAPs) has had a huge impact. According to onesource, between 2013 and 2021 the number of 911 call centers nationwide dropped from 7,485 to 5,748. While this means big cost savings for PSAPs already struggling with staffing, fewer emergency communication centers means fewer opportunities to sell, say, computer-aided dispatch or call-recording software. It’s not hard to see how trends like these have major implications for a marketing plan.
Every week, we see news and market indicators, whether in public safety or beyond, that could have repercussions or opportunities for our clients. The rapid adoption ofprehospital blood transfusion across the U.S., for example, means more EMS agencies will need equipment, paramedic training and blood products to stand up their own transfusion program. In 911, therecommended minimum guidelines for public safety telecommunicator training were revised in June 2026 for the first time in a decade. While the guidelines aren’t mandated, these updates could affect call centers’ training needs.
Any of these could be an opportunity for a company making products or delivering services to public safety customers. At a minimum, they might have an impact on your clients’ day-to-day work and priorities. In short, it’s definitely worth weighing how trends like this might affect your organization—and your marketing strategy.
Rethinking what makes a good marketing plan
A marketing plan is simply a set of hypotheses. You’re setting targets and making educated guesses about which tactics will help you reach those goals given the resources you have and the timeline you project.
But even the best marketing plan shouldn’t remain static or be confused with a bible. While there are some parts of your plan that won’t change—what you stand for as a company and your mission and values, for example—there’s a lot you’ll always need to stay flexible on.
So how do you keep your strategic communications and marketing plan current, relevant, even a little innovative? This doesn’t need to be difficult or time-consuming. While a new product line or significant shift in business goals typically requires creating a new strategy, in many cases it’s enough to do a light quarterly refresh.
For example, you could score each of your major tactics (e.g., paid search, email marketing, social media campaigns, etc.) according to five key areas: impact, audience fit, efficiency, current relevance and future potential. Quantitative and qualitative data should be part of your assessment of impact and results. Then give each tactic a score of one to five and add up the total to see whether or not it’s still working.
Or you can take an even simpler approach: Ask your team which of your current tactics, if any, they’d invest in if you were to build a brand-new marketing plan today. Their assessment should include hard results (metrics) as well as a “gut check” (softer, more qualitative information) about how your current efforts are performing.
Another idea: Spend your next marketing meeting answering these questions:
- What’s changed about our audience(s)?
- What’s changed about how they find and evaluate our products/services?
- What’s changed in the market or competitive landscape?
- What’s changed in the channels, platforms or technology we use?
- What have we learned from results/metrics that we didn’t know a year ago?
What you uncover using any or all of the methods above is likely to give you, at a minimum, several insights that will make it easier to regularly update your marketing plan without having to undertake a complete review.
In other words, rinse, by all means. But don’t necessarily repeat. Happy planning!
Download the2026 “State of Public Safety Marketing” Ebook for more insights, and if you’re ready to talk about updating or creating your strategic marketing plan, we’d love tostart a conversation.
