In a recent blog we discussed how we can make sure that marketing is effective for our business. This blog reiterates that while you need ensure the effectiveness of your Marketing, it is also crucial to ensure that it is effective all-year round.
Businesses will often gear up for events such as Christmas, Mother’s day, Father’s day, Stocktake Sales and the like, and then accept that there are quieter periods in the rest of the year. But really, this should not be the case. What can we do to market all-year round?
Let’s look to multinational companies to explore this issue. It gets hard to compete when you are reacting all the time to promotions of big players and you feel you have to follow. Unfortunately, most businesses react by putting on sales which may actually reduce your profits due to the size of the discounts offered to get a response from the price conscious customers.
But we have to realize that the thing that makes multinationals successful in marketing is that they know how to make their customers think that everything is for sale all the time. How do they do this?
Here are 3 steps to follow.
1. Determine the purpose for the promotion
Knowing the purpose sets the stage for the rest of the promotional plan because it lets everyone involved understand what it is for and why the outcome should be successful. Also, tell all your staff about the promotion and ask for their ideas.
2. Set specific targets
Setting specific targets allows you to focus your marketing dollars and your message on a specific area that is more likely to act on your promotion i.e. your loyal customers. Plan your advertising to match the customer – this is a much efficient way to increase sales, target margins and sell specific products or services.
Make sure you’re running and interesting promotion and not just discount sales. Why not try to package your products to see how your customers react to this kind of offer?
3. Evaluate the success of your promotion
If it clicks, identify how you can measure if it was a successful promotion. Identify a specific increase in sales needed to compensate for any decrease in the price. And in the end, make sure you evaluate the overall success of the promotion.
Now, here are 8 questions that can determine whether your marketing activities are worth your time and money. In our experience, if your score is below 48 then you are not getting value for money for your advertising, and your result will be mixed.
Rate yourself on these 8 questions by scoring 0 to 10, with 0 – lowest; 5 – average, with some ideas in writing; 10 – strongly planned, well organized:
Use the result as a guide for the things you need to improve on to make sure you’re running successful and effective marketing activities that can stand any season or any event.
Remember that successful marketing is the backbone of a business and will determine your financial future.
