Them other boys don’t know how to act...something something something about picking up the slack... Take it to the bridge.
Sorry. I tried. Your company should see a great turn around in your marketing efforts. Truth is, if you're not seeing a return on investment in every piece of marketing you dish out, you are probably wasting your time. So how do we pinpoint the time wasters, and highlight the profit makers?
Bring the sexy back to your organization and your vision with results that only market audits can provide.
Related Post: The Top 10 Reasons A Marketing Audit Will Help Your Business Grow
It's not easy but it's not a "rocket science" mentality that gets the results either. You will have to put forth the effort to analyze your present marketing strategy honestly and scrupulously. You will also have to find the direct results of each of your marketing strategies in real numbers. With the knowledge of the past you can make the changes needed to eliminate the wasted time and effort and make more money. Now that is "hot."
Look at what you are doing now
Make a list of every penny that you've spent on any marketing effort in the last three fiscal years that your organization has been in operation. If you have been in business less than three years use what you have, but do not overlook any money you spent.
Your accountants can help generate the list of items along with your sales and marketing team. If you use social media, the internet, and phone marketing, your systems manager and tech guru should be part of the brainstorming session that makes the list of marketing efforts.
Attach a realistic and documentable number that indicates the number of leads that each and every one of your marketing efforts has produced. This does not mean money at this stage of the procedure. What you are looking for is the number of responses each single marketing effort produced in terms of people. New client generation is the idea. Therefore, you are looking for what generates the most new clients
Put a dollar value on each of your marketing efforts. This may be the hardest part of the audit effort because you are probably doing some marketing that cannot be tracked either by results or by dollars. Determine how much you spent on each marketing strategy and put a dollar value on the results. Results are usually sales. You should collect data for net income and gross income for each marketing effort.
Determine the return on investment for each of your itemized marketing campaigns. Determining return on investment is just like doing the same for a piece of equipment or a building. Look at the return you get based on gross profit and net profit. Looking at gross and net profit gives you the advantage of seeing if a gap in gross profit and net profit can target your winning and losing marketing strategies.
Determine what the results of your present marketing strategies are.
Now is the time to make sense of all the numbers you crunched.
Any marketing campaign or strategy that does not produce a minimum of two times a return on your dollar investment is a target for dismissal or restructuring. Order all of your itemized marketing expenditures in terms of return on investment.
Some campaigns may be related or use the same medium so those may have to be considered as a group. Do not be too quick to put all of your social media campaigns or phone strategies into a single group. Look for connected strategies as a key for grouping as well as the same target group or market.
Do not drop every marketing campaign strategy that is not a money maker. Some of your efforts produce substantial rewards that cannot be seen on the bottom line. You may lose money at first on strategies that improve your people’s morale or allow you staff to work more efficiently. You get paid back later. You also want to look at strategies that open new doors and opportunities because that is where new money will come from.
Now for the results of your marketing audit
Scientists and statisticians say if you cannot put a number on it, then you do not know anything about it. This is your new philosophy for marketing. Get rid of the campaigns and strategies that you spend money on but cannot account for. Again, those strategies that improve morale and performance or open the door to new opportunities should be kept even if they do not make money but you need to get a grip on what these are costing you.
Wake up to what is now. Digital is where the money is. You reach more people with less expense and time with digital marketing campaigns. One of the benefits of digital marketing is that Google and many of the social media and phone services will do the number crunching for you so that next year’s marketing audit will be faster and more productive.
If you are in business then you are in competition. The idea behind a marketing audit is to find the best path to beat the competition and can put you out in front because the other companies don’t know how to act and won’t know how to keep up with you.It is all about profit. A marketing audit makes you more money out of every marketing effort and makes your company grow faster than the competition. Now that is putting your sexy back into your business.
