It’s July. Do you know how your marketing is doing?

6th, Jul 2015

In December, we wrote about 3 reasons why you didn’t achieve your marketing goals in 2014. Well, we’re now 6 months into 2015 and it’s a good time to look at how you’re doing and make sure you’re not making the same mistakes.

So for your mid-year marketing check, ask yourself these questions:

1. How well are you targeting your audience?

Did you take the time at the beginning of the year to prioritize the markets you wanted to go after? When you really think about it, you probably have at least a few audiences you can target for your services (different industries, referral sources, etc.). It’s unlikely you have an unlimited marketing budget so that means you have to pick and choose where to spend your resources. Do some research to determine who should be your top targets for the year. And then do more research to learn about their needs and interests, how to find them, where they get their information and how they make decisions. You want to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.

2. Do you have specific goals and are you tracking results?

You should have very particular (and prioritized) objectives in mind that you want your marketing to help you obtain. This helps you to understand where to focus your marketing efforts and create benchmarks so you can monitor your progress. It might still be too soon to see the impact of your marketing in terms of actual new business signed this year. However, you may be seeing other indications that your message is effectively getting out to your audience. Are you seeing more web traffic, building your contact database, getting more calls, etc.? There are lots of ways to gauge progress. The first step though is setting short, mid, and long-term goals that are sufficiently specific for you to establish some way to measure improvement. Then remember that no matter how well you are doing, you should continue to track, test and revise your tactics.

3. Do you have a strategic marketing plan?

A marketing plan lets you think about your priorities and where and how you should focus your resources for the most impact. Without a plan, you run the risk of spending time and money on an assortment of different tactics without a clearly defined purpose. It also helps keep you honest and accountable. It’s too easy to start something and then let it drop. Putting it in writing reminds you that you thought it was worth investing in. You documented who you wanted to go after and why and how you would go about it. When you feel like it’s taking too long to see results or you’re tempted to spend the time and money on something else, read the plan to stay on track.

It’s July. How is your marketing doing?

Tagged: best practices, tips