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Welcome to the The Marketing Source e-newsletter! Our goal is to provide
you with real-world marketing tips.If you have any ideas for articles,
please send them along.
Is Your Marketing Making the Grade?
 If you had to grade your marketing for the first half of 2007, what
would it be? A for effort, but short on results? C- for being stuck in
a rut, doing the same things but not reaching the goals you set?
This mid-year point is a great time to take a hard, close look at what
you're doing: what's working and what's not. It's a time to be brutally
honest in your assessments and fearless in looking at new and better
ways to create the marketing organization you want. Here are a few questions
that will quickly show you whether you are right on course, or whether
you need to change your direction.
WHO IS MY TARGET AUDIENCE?
Who were your most profitable clients or customers in the last 12 months?
Were they who you thought they would be or did you find a whole new target
audience? Why? Go back to the tried-and-true 80-20 rule: 80% of your
business comes from 20% of your clients or customers. Your best bet is
to make sure you communicate very well and very often with these key
target audiences first - even if that means setting others to the side.
Once you are doing all you need to do with your key target audiences,
you can expand your reach to other groups. Of course, reaching your target
audience means knowing them. Are they young professionals with lots of
discretionary income or SUV- driving soccer moms? Do they come to you
because of loyalty, convenience or tradition, or because you give them
good service? The more you understand about your customers, the easier
it is to get your marketing on target.
AM I GETTING MY MESSAGE ACROSS?
Whether your media budget is $10,000 or $1,000,000, you need to make
sure those dollars are well spent. Clients with relatively small media
budgets are often so desperate to be "heard" that they waste
what little advertising or marketing budget they have. The local newspaper
may have a big subscriber base, but if you get most of your clients through
referrals, you'll be better off with a series of targeted direct mail
letters. After all, advertising is just one tool in a well thought out
and planned communication mix. Direct marketing, sales promotion, public
relations/publicity, and personal selling are just as important and can
be equally effective. And don't be afraid to try something new! Social
networking, text messaging, web technology and more are easily accessible.
HOW WELL AM I COMMUNICATING WITH MY TARGET AUDIENCE?
What you say is just as important as where you put your communications.
Every advertisement you place, direct mail letter or newsletter you send
and how your company handles client relations are parts of an ongoing
conversation with your target audience. The goal of those conversations:
be concise, be consistent and get your audience to listen and occasionally
talk back. Tip: most organizations think they do a great job on communicating
with their audiences. Want to be sure? Ask a few people in your audience
to get a better assessment of how you are really doing.
HOW DO I KNOW?
You don't know how you are doing, unless you measure. Evaluate your
marketing efforts so you can judge at key benchmarks and at year end
how effective your communications efforts have been. Select 5 - 10 indicators
that will tell you if you are accomplishing your goals. Make them simple
(something you can actually measure, like phone calls or an increase
in sales from a particular product/service) and make them meaningful
(something that drives business or profit). Compare which tools work
best for you in which situations. If you aren't measuring results over
time, it's hard to tell what is performing best.
HOW DID YOU DO?
Are you in good shape? Or do you feel like you are trying for a come-from-behind
victory that's going to take everything you have for the next six months?
Either way, take a time out. Think about the progress you've made and
whether your goals need to be adjusted. Take your marketing department
off site for a planning day (or part of a day). If you are a department
of one, force yourself to sit down and write out your goals for the rest
of the year. Adjust your strategies and tactics. Take a look at the projects
and strategies you've been putting off. If they are still important,
find the people you need to make them happen and get started. Keep the
focus on the basics: your audiences, your communications and your priorities.
With a little planning and a few adjustments, you can still make it to
the head of the class.
Having a mid-year crisis? The Marketing
Source can help.
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