Marketing In Tough Times Part Two: Your Vital Marketing Audit
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In the current unforgiving climate, you have to be razor-sharp with your marketing if you are to reach businesses, make sales and plan powerful marketing campaigns on shoestring budgets. If you are simply doing today what you did last year and your marketing results are on the decline or bobbing at the surface a marketing audit is long overdue. Consider….
Are you engaging in marketing activities for reasons other than because they effectively reach the businesses you want to convert?
For example are you overloading on social media at the expense of tried and tested tools such as targeted direct mail and business to business networking just because it is comfortable and easy? It’s tempting to get into a marketing comfort zone but that comfort zone becomes uncomfortable when it fails to deliver results.
Are you putting all of your marketing eggs in one basket?
One business, a national franchisor realised during the marketing audit process that relying solely on leaflets to launch a franchisee’s new business was flawed. Whilst leaflets had worked in the past, they were now insufficient and new marketing channels had to be found.
Are you overspending on marketing?
Marketing your way through a recession should not entail throwing huge sums of money on random marketing activities. And yet this is what some businesses in the business to business sector do. It’s akin to panic buying and is best avoided! Make a list of your marketing activities. What you have spent on each one? What results have ensued – leads, introductions, referrals and sales? What are your acquisition costs? If you’re acquiring business at a cost that makes it impossible to make a decent profit, you’ve got two choices. You can jettison the activity or, you can explore ways in which you can reduce your outlay to bring the acquisition costs within your acceptable range.
Are you leaving your professional partners in the dark?
If you are hoping that your advertising agency, your designer and your B2B data provider will carry the marketing torch for your business, you’re overlooking the importance of creative collaboration. No one loves your business and your brand as much as you. No one knows your customer base and your customers like you. Don’t
distance yourself from the marketing planning process. Be present, lead from the front and collaborate closely with all of your professional partners. Inspire them with detailed and relevant briefs of your requirements and ask each one how they can help you to reach more potential customers on a shoestring budget. Can they offer more for the same price? What else do they offer that you could potentially benefit from?
Has your logo and your website seen better days?
If you have built your business on the back of a home-made website and a homemade logo then change is overdue. Your marketing campaigns must have the right impact so consider investing in your visual brand so you are more than fit for purpose.
How accurate and up-to-date is your client database?
If clients are complaining that you’re e-mailing and direct mailing them with incorrect details, an intensive spring clean, perhaps even an augmentation of your client database is needed. It may be enough to pay a trusted soul to clean your database by telephoning customers but you may need to bring in the database experts like Marketscan. An unclean database will cost you customers, sales and potentially your reputation.
Is your marketing planning random or do you plan on a rolling 3 month cycle?
The audiences you are going to reach, the marketing tools you will use to reach them, the core messages that will make them act and the cost of each campaign? One off random approaches rarely deliver the results that warrant the time and money spent on them whereas multi-touch campaigns build confidence and trust over a period of time. They lead to sales.
Next week: Why your targeting must be laser honed
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