5 Growth Success Factors Your Business Must Have To Make More Money
Quick Test - Assess Your Performance as a Marketer
13th March 2008
A quick Health Check on your overall marketing activities and strategies will provide an immediate indication as to how well the marketing programs, or you, are performing.
The Health Check will identify areas which are working really well, and any which may require you to take action.
The Quick DIY Marketing Health Check:
What are some of the questions to consider to help you assess the overall performance or health of your marketing? Read on…
General Marketing & Promotion:
- Do you have a vision which illuminates your marketing strategies and programs?
- Is the overall business growing? Do you really know why?
- Are your customers actively purchasing the products and services you are providing, as you introduce new products and services to the market?
- Are all your marketing activities effective?
- Is there an annual/quarterly/activity based budget allocation for marketing?
- Do you know what your desired outcomes are from your marketing activities?
- Will you be able to measure the outcomes?
- Do you know the impact on customers of your promotions?
- Do you know the demographics (who they are and where they are) and the psychographics (why they buy from you) of your customers?
- Could you profile your ideal customer?
- Do you have a brand?
- Do you know how well your brand is recognized and perceived in your target market?
- Do you have the marketing materials you need to support the sales process?
Products & Services Marketing:
- Do you have a mix of new products, your core products, and some more mature products?
- Do you have one product or service which is the cash cow for you?
- Does it take longer, and cost more than you’d like, to develop and launch new products into the market?
- Do all your products make acceptable margins?
- Do you have a product/service strategy for new growth?
- Do you think you are doing as well as your toughest competitors?
- Do you have a process to develop new products from concept through to market release?
- Are all your products making money for your business?
- Do you have too many products in the portfolio?
- Do you have a product development process which costs, tracks and measures the effect of developing new products?
- Do you know how to withdraw products from the market?
How do you Rate?
Draw up a form with a simple checklist, rating each answer as ‘poor’, ‘satisfactory’, ‘needs work’ or ‘good’. Every question can be quickly answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but only you will know the degree to which the ‘yes’ relates: ‘yes’ as in excellent, or ‘yes’ as in pretty poor. When you have rated each answer and recorded it in the table, you should be able to see the most frequently scored rating, and make an overall assessment of the marketing area.
If an area is generally in pretty good shape, and scored mostly ‘Good’ ratings, but one or two aspects rated a lower score such as ‘Poor’ or ‘Satisfactory’, it would be worth your while to address those under-performing areas now, before they affect all the good marketing activities or programs that are working well. As they say, “Prevention is better than cure.”
Sample score card:
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Marketing & Promotion |
Poor |
Satisfactory |
Needs Work |
Good |
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Vision behind marketing |
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Understanding drivers behind business growth |
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Active customers |
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Measurable marketing programs |
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Marketing budget |
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Demographics known |
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Psychographics known |
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Product & Services Marketing |
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Cash cow products |
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Acceptable product margins |
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Positioning against competitors |
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Are all your products profitable |
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Product development process which costs, tracks & measures |
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Exit strategies in place |
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When you can see at a glance what the overall health of your marketing is, make a decision as to the appropriate course of action:
No action required (big tick for your performance, or maybe you haven’t been completely honest in your evaluation…)
Identify priority areas which require attention
Decide what action needs to be taken
Implement improvements
Review progress in 1, 3, 6, 12 months time as appropriate
The outcome of this process will tell you:
B The strategy required – which will focus you
B What you then have to do – which will improve your marketing operations
B What you need to measure in the follow up review – with results as the outcome
B It will have measured your performance as the marketing manager
B Finally, if you are under-performing in any areas of your marketing, it will help you to make changes which result in improved performance next time around
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Jenny Stilwell is the creator of BOSSMENTOR® Business, a FREE ezine for professional, lifestyle oriented business owners wanting to confidently increase the value of their service business, ultimately spending less time in it. You’ll get proven strategies, tips and resources designed to help you achieve success. To receive your free e-book information, and sign up for how-to articles on creating and managing business growth, visit www.bossgroup.com.au