As Christmas approaches, many of us look forward to some well-deserved relaxation, sunshine, and backyard cricket. For some businesses this is a hectic time of year, while for many B2B businesses, it’s just business as usual (unless you’re selling Christmas ham or prawns!).
This period is also the perfect time to do a half financial year marketing strategy, and marketing activity calendar check-in. Here are some top tips for best practice marketing management throughout the year.
Cadence
You’ve set your marketing investment budget for the year, the Marketing Assistant has planned out all the activities. Job done, right? Wrong! It’s essential to be checking-in on your marketing performance at least once a quarter. This way, you can determine what’s working, what’s not, and whether it’s time to pivot on any particular activity.
For example, if you’re spending a significant amount of money on hosting customer events, but hardly anyone’s turning up, and those who do are just there for the free food–why not reinvest that budget towards trade shows where you’re generating many new leads instead?
Sitting down once a quarter to review every activity and their associated return on investment (ROI) will put you on the path to investing your marketing budget more effectively.
ROI Measures
It’s important to note here that not all marketing ROI measures are financial. Different marketing tactics serve various purposes, so they need different KPIs!
Think of marketing as a funnel. At the top of the funnel, your goal is to generate as many opportunities as possible. If you aim to convert 10% of your leads, you’ll need to start with around 100 opportunities.
Top-of-funnel investments–like brand awareness is just as important as investing money on obtaining warm leads (mid/bottom of funnel). This is assuming of course, that not every potential customer knows about your brand (which is a safe assumption unless you’re McDonalds or Coca-Cola).
Focussing on top-of-funnel activities might not see an immediate financial return, but it will in the long run!
Strategy Check
Six months in an industry can be a long time. Asking yourself all of these questions and more will help guide your strategy.
- What’s changed?
- Have there been any changes in your target audiences demographics or psychographics (like attitudes, values, or pain points)?
- Does your audience have new technologies (such as a popular new app among healthcare professionals)?
- When was the last time you conducted a Customer and Brand Health Survey to uncover what your customers think about you?
- Are your brand awareness and association measures up to date?
- Is it time to reassess your product range?
- Is your product ‘tail’ taking up valuable time and resources from your sales and administration teams?
- Is it time to do a cull (the 80:20 rule or the ‘Pareto Principle’)?
- Have you ever looked at your product range from a ‘Quadrant Analysis’ perspective?
Doing a simple Sales/Margin report by product and ranking your SKUs can help you sort the ‘Stars’ from the ‘Losers’. Here is an example of how to map this out below:
Some questions to consider:
- What about new competitors?
- Are there any new products that are shaking up the industry?
- Are you seeing more of any particular competitor brand lately (a sure sign they’ve increased their marketing spend)?
- Have any competitors repositioned themselves in the market?
Example of a Simple Brand Positioning Matrix
What if a new premium American burger brand entered the Australian market, should local chains like Grill’d be worried?
Should they revisit their strategy or enhance their local messaging? Absolutely!
Conclusion
“You’re only as good as the last game you played”. Things change fast, so regularly revisiting your marketing strategy and tactics ensures you’re keeping pace with the competition. Ensuring you’re investing your marketing dollars as effectively as possible.
So, before you pick up that well-deserved beer, wine or soft drink this Christmas, do your business a favour and conduct a half yearly check-in. It will set you up to hit the ground running in January!
At Active Directions, we specialise in assisting small to medium businesses implement effective growth marketing strategies. Reach out to us today for a confidential conversation on how we can support your journey.
