Marketing Assessment: Outperform Your Competition This Year

Your business may have gone through an operational assessment, sales assessment, and/or workflow assessment. Have you also evaluated your marketing efforts? What you can do to improve your market awareness, sales opportunities, and business revenue? Now may be the time to analyze what is working and what needs a new approach to achieve marketing goals.

Below are seven steps to get you started in the right direction.

1. Analyze results of current marketing programs and activities. Did you achieve your goals? Are your programs and plans performing to your standards?
   
   You haven’t been tracking your marketing programs? That’s OK. It’s never too late to begin. Here’s a process to help you get started.
2. Create goals for your print business. Using the SMART goal process you’ll define clear and concise objectives for your company and business areas. I recommend defining goals with considerations for sales, marketing, operations, client service and, new services and profits.
   • Specific
   • Measurable
   • Attainable
   • Relevant
   • Time-bound
     
     Example – We will increase print-on-demand application revenue from our current education customers by 10% each month in Q4 2020. This will lead to defining supporting actions for client service and sales teams.
3. Determine your target market
   Based on business results, where are you seeing profitable activity? Where do you plan to increase sales? Are there market conditions that need consideration? In our SMART goals example, one of the target markets is education. Let’s get specific, are you selling into Public or private schools? K-12 or higher ed? They both are in the education sector, but you’ll be engaging with different titles with different requirements, needs and schedules.
4. Review your offerings/services
   Are you offering the right services for your target market(s)? Is there opportunity to grow business within the education market? Perhaps there are banner requirements used for outdoor classroom separation. Do you have capacity on your wide-format printers? Can you outsource to a local printer?
5. Evaluate your marketing (materials, resources, activities and processes)
   Review your website, social presence, sales kits, collateral, direct marketing. Does this marketing material speak to the education market? During a pandemic? With new rules implemented daily?
   
   What tools will your sales team need during the engagement process.
   
   
6. Build and implement your marketing strategy and plan
   In previous posts, I outlined the reasons why you need a marketing strategy and marketing plan. These keep your business on track to achieve your SMART goals.
7. Track and analyze your results
   You were given a pass up above in Step 1 if you don’t have results, today. Moving forward, no excuses. Start your planning, set goals, track and analyze results of all the programs you put in place.

These are seven high level steps to get you started with a marketing assessment.

Why do it? Companies with clear goals out-perform companies that do not have clearly defined goals and objectives.

Not sure how to begin your marketing assessment? Is now the time? Visit my website, KimberlyMeyers.com or call me direct 646.320.8854 for more information. Let’s connect.