The first thing I will say is that I am no marketing expert, but there are a few things that I have picked up in my time working with clients and working with Marketers who are far more switched on than me. I work with many clients who still forget the basics of good marketing. Here are some rules that I work to,
- Know your customer. If you cannot describe who your primary customer target is then how can you market to them. Find your ideal target and build your marketing campaigns round them and the rest will fall into line
- Lay out all your current marketing material on a table. does it look the same i.e. font, colours, layout, key messages etc
- What are you trying to achieve from your marketing programs?
- Do you communicate all the major points about your offering and your business?
- Have you considered the best way to promote to your target audience?
- when you use different media types e.g. web, brochures and direct mail for example, how does your communications translate across all those mediums?
- How can you monitor the effectiveness of your marketing activities?
- Are there seasonal opportunities to promote various offers throughout the year?
- Do you have case studies and reference sites to validate what you are saying to clients in your communications pieces?
On top of this you must have a robust process for capturing those valuable leads and converting them into customers. Easier said than done. If your campaign is highly successful. could your business cope with an increased volume of leads. Some companies use trade shows and events as a way to generate a sales pipeline that lasts the year. This is particularly true if the product has a long sales cycle time.
I suppose the most important message is that if you are not sure seek professional advice. From what I have seen, it is well worth the effort. I am not sure who said it but I recall a saying along the lines of, “50% of all marketing works, if I knew which 50% I would be a rich man”. Seeking expert assistance increases the odds of getting it right.
