Since I first starting working full-time in marketing just short of 10 years ago (gulp!) I’ve had campaigns and ideas that I thought would be amazing which have totally crashed… but also some others that have been far more successful than I could have ever thought, generating lots of enquiries and sales.
1. What do you know about your target market?
Even if your target market is “everyone” (hot tip: it never is), you will still be able to segment down your market into more bite sizeable chunks. The thing is, the more you can hone down who exactly the people are who’re buying your products and services the easier it’ll be to work out what their buying patterns are, what magazines they read, what social media platforms they use etc. The more you know, the more targeted your marketing message can be, increasing its chance on making a real impact on the person.
2. Is your marketing activity consistent?
The ultimate marketing fail – starting off all guns blazing with a campaign, getting busy, then stopping due to being too busy. I’ve done it, we’ve all done it. The truth is a good marketing strategy often works better over a long period, not a short term craze.
3. What does your marketing plan look like?
Is it a scribble on a piece of paper? A 30 page comprehensive document? Does it exist? Planning always helps with number 2, so for that reason having some sort of marketing plan will help your carry out your marketing activities on a regular basis. Use programs such as Asana, Dapulse and Hootsuite to plan your marketing time a little better.
4. How do you track where your sales come from?
Ideally, whether it be an enquiry or a direct sale, tracking where they have come from will enable you to paint a better picture as to what is working within your marketing strategy. Whether it’s a simple spreadsheet or an integrated CRM, tracking the success of your marketing avenues will enable you to work out where to increase and decrease that precious marketing budget!
5. Are you spending enough money on marketing?
Speaking of marketing budget, how much are you spending? Companies usually spend between 5-10% of their annual turnover on their marketing budget, but this can fluctuate significantly depending on the type of business sector. Ultimately, your marketing budget has to match your aspirations. Don’t expect enquiries/sales to fly in if your marketing budget is little to non-existent, but saying that make sure you don’t overspend on strategies that don’t work.
6. How do you track the success of your marketing work?
In order to keep the budget at the right level, as mentioned above, you’ll need effective ways of tracking how successful your marketing channels are. The great thing about marketing online is that most of the individual tools come with detailed analytical functions. Take email marketing for example, you can find out how many people who have opened the email, who clicked on the links and exactly what they clicked on. Google Analytics, although it has many flaws with spam far too easily influencing statistics, gives you an incredible snapshot into the behaviour of website visitors. Even Facebook and Twitter now gives you statistics so you can find out what posts reach the most people.
7. What do you feel you could do better?
There’s always ways to improve, with technology and social media apps continuously improving and changing. Just because something is working really well one year, doesn’t mean that 12 months later it’ll be operating with the same effectiveness. This is especially noticeable on Facebook, posting a certain type of status update/photo might work awesomely well to begin with, but eventually people get bored. Keeping your followers on their toes is the key to ensuring your marketing stays relevant.
I hope you’ve found this fairly brief, but straight to the point checklist, useful! Remain focused and don’t be opposed to new ideas, even if they might sound ridiculous to begin with. Remember, if you need any support with your marketing make sure you drop us a message on our live chat or send us a message to arrange a free consultation meeting. 😊