Your Marketing Checklist: Checking it Once, Checking it Twice

Early December is often one of the busiest times of the year for many businesses as we feverishly try to shore up fourth quarter sales orders, wrap up year-end projects and campaigns and start planning for 2016. By mid to late December, businesses wind down as we take off time for the holidays; it can act like the calm before the storm, knowing that as soon as January comes, we will hit the ground running!

Statistically, 60% of SMBs create marketing strategies, but lack the resources to implement them or fail to measure their success. This December, invest some time into taking stock of your marketing, to reflect on your achievements and objectives over the past 12 months. Think about what your strategy was coming into 2015 and whether what you planned measured up to your expectations and met your objectives.

I’ve outlined below my top 10 critical marketing questions, which are derived from what is considered the necessary components to produce successful marketing results:

Marketing Strategy

• Did you have a marketing strategy for 2015?
  • If not, why not?

• Do you think it is something you’d consider for 2016?

Met Objectives

• How did you plan to achieve your objectives outlined in your strategy?
  • Print collateral e.g. brochure/flyer/postcard
  • Social Media campaigns e.g. FB contest
  • Broadcast Advertising e.g. radio or TV
  • Digital or online advertising e.g. banner ads, Google Ads
  • Marketing automation
  • Video productions
  • Trade shows
  • E-blasts
  • Website and SEO
  • Other

Customer Intelligence

• Did you make an effort to learn more about the needs of your customers i.e. conduct any market/customer research?
• How did you measure customer satisfaction/engagement/user experience?
• Did you make an effort to learn more about the competing products or services of your competitors i.e. conduct any market/customer research?
  • If you conducted some research, did you implement new strategies based on the findings?

 Planning

• Did you plan the timing for implementing your tactics i.e. create critical paths?

 Measurement

• How was each tactic measured for ROI?
• Did you assess your success of each tactic? What did well and what didn’t? How could you have improved on your approaches?

 Improvement

• When you compare your goals with your achievements, what could you have done better?
• How will you revise your strategy for 2016?

 

In planning for 2016, what will you do differently to produce better results than last year?

 

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