As a business owner, what are the key questions you should be asking those responsible for your marketing? What should you ask to get a better understanding on how marketing is contributing to the success of your business?
1 – How are we measuring the performance of our activities?
Show me the results. How many leads or sales were generated from each marketing campaign and how were they were tracked. If the question can’t be answered because the tracking is non existent or isn’t accurate, you can’t be confident that your campaign was a success.
2 – Who are we targeting in our marketing?
Sales and marketing go hand in hand as marketing leads to sales. If your marketing audience e.g. visitors to your website or your followers on social media are different from your target customers then your efforts may be wasted and you will be missing opportunities to reach out to future clients.
3 – How are we retaining existing customers?
Many marketing strategies focus on gaining new customers at the expense of keeping existing ones. Both are important, but keeping current customers engaged with the business is just as essential as building new clients in order to generate sales for the business.
4 – Who are our top customers?
How are you identifying the customers that drive the most profit for the business. How do you rank them and how impactful are they for the business? You want to find out which individuals or groups drive an outsized portion of your business results. When you can look at a single list and see your main customers you have the power to identify the unique characteristics of this group and work hard to attract more.
5 – What should we stop doing?
It’s far to easy to get into a marketing routine and do things just because you’ve done them in the past. By reviewing data and challenging your marketing efforts it is possible to identify those things you should stop doing and those efforts you should do more of to provide a greater return to your business.
6 – What metrics are we monitoring to measure success?
There are so many different metrics that you can measure. The rule when deciding what to measure is:
• Does this metric help me make a decision?
• When I view this metric does it help me understand how to get closer to my business goals?
• If you answer ‘No’ to both questions you are looking at a vanity metric and need to ignore it and repeat steps to identify better metrics to monitor.
About the author
Richard Milton is founder of e-nexus Ltd – a Marketing Consultancy based in Bournemouth specialising in Strategic Marketing Planning and Performance Measurement. He is a career long marketer, holding numerous senior marketing positions throughout his 20 years in the profession. Describing himself as a marketing strategist, performance and measurement specialist, Richard spends time working with business owners, managers and marketers to help them improve their marketing decisions, investments and impact by harnessing the power of data and insights alongside his strategic experience.
Richard’s biggest passion is to help marketers show the value of their efforts and give them the confidence and skills to be able to share the story with their senior managers. Richard helps organisations understand the importance of measurement and metrics as well as appreciate the breadth of data available to them in todays marketing world.
You can read more from Richard at his measure4success blog at http://www.measure4success.wordpress.com. To find out more about e-nexus visit http://www.e-nexus.co.uk
