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FREE MARKETING RESOURCESMARKETING ARTICLESAudit Your Marketing Performance: 16 Questions to Ask By M. Michelle Poskaitis, CEO, Originations Marketing LLC A marketing audit is a thorough examination and evaluation of marketing practices and results. A common technique that reaffirms strategies and expenditures while identifying inefficiencies and opportunities to improve market share, marketing audits offer a baseline benchmark on marketing performance. Audits Tell What Works and Doesn’t Work Marketing audits:
The result is an honest appraisal—exempt from organizational politics—of what’s working and not working, revealing:
Find Easy Ways to Cut Costs Marketing audits also uncover simple cost-cutting tactics that can increase performance and maximize your return. A 15,000-member trade association launched an advertising campaign to promote publications. Using reader response cards in targeted trade magazines, they garnered hundreds of sales monthly. Orders shipped within 48 hours. The organization used an effective cross-selling strategy by including membership and conference information with every shipment. What didn’t work? Once fulfilled, response cards were filed away, rather than source-coded and entered into a prospect database for future solicitation. By doing the latter, the association could:
Useful Questions to Ask . . . Here are some key questions to help you get a “quick read” on how well your staff and organization employs marketing principles. …About Marketing Planning
Sounds obvious, but many forgo the annual practice of developing a written marketing plan. Admittedly, this requires a hefty dose of discipline. But you can’t achieve a goal without first articulating it, identifying where you are, and determining how to get there. Writing down your goal allows your marketing team to easily share information and avoid unforeseen breakdowns such as when the marketing department initiates a promotional campaign but forgets to tell call center staff, who find themselves deluged with questions. . . . About Marketing Research
Your staff should be able to articulate a customer profile for each product or service and explain the want or need each product or service satisfies for each customer type. . . . About Customers
The correct answer isn’t necessarily “those who pay us the most per order.” Why? Because, if tracked, you may discover customers who don’t prefer big-ticket items may routinely spend more on multiple purchases over time. Customer groups are defined by geography, type of industry, job title, type of training, purchasing pattern, demographics, or other significant characteristics. Understanding how your product or service fulfills a customer want or need and how wants or needs vary by customer type allows you to prioritize the market. It also helps you find the largest consumer groups that are most likely to buy repeatedly. . . . About Cost and Price
Without an eye toward cost of goods sold and the competition, marketing initiatives will lack any focus on profitability. . . . About Convenience
With innumerable options available, ease of use and ease of purchase can turn into a competitive advantage or a deal-breaker. If you offer high quality at competitive prices and satisfy customers, but make them work too hard to buy, you risk losing sales. . . . About Brand Communication
Listen for a three-sentence answer that articulates the most sustainable benefit that gives the greatest leverage for the product or service, which cannot be owned by any competitors. If your organization doesn’t own the answer to this question, how will you communicate your value?
There are no permanent, “right” answers in marketing. Customers’ wants and needs are moving targets, and marketing initiatives require testing and re-testing to find the most profitable formula. As such, the activity of examining your organization’s marketing practices and results is itself germane to productive marketing. First published: American Society of Association Executives, Executive IdeaLink Author
of the ASAE best-selling book Smart
Marketing for Associations: Marketing Plans That
Work,
M. Michelle Poskaitis’ expertise includes marketing
planning, positioning, messaging and content development.
A contributing writer and editor for association trade
press, Michelle is CEO of Originations Marketing LLC
and past chair of the ASAE Marketing Section Council.
Contact: mmp@originations.net John
Gunn Marketing Partners, LLC © 2009 John Gunn Marketing Partners, LLC. All rights reserved. |
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