Marketing strategy advice

I’m often asked for marketing strategy advice as I have worked with several thousand businesses in this area. Here are some of the questions that I ask, during an initial conversation:

*  Do you have a business plan?
*  When was the last time that this was reviewed?
*  Do you have a written marketing plan?
*  How often do you look at it?
*  What is your turnover target for the year ahead?
*  What is your profitability target for the year ahead?
*  Which customer segments are you targeting and can you describe them to me?
*  How many customers / clients will you need to achieve this target?
*  How are you positioning your business?
*  What makes your brand stand out from the crowd?
*  Where do you keep your customer records?
*  How often do you contact dormant, current and prospective customers?
*  How many products / services do you have?
*  Is your pricing maximising your profit potential?
*  Where are your customers (local, regional, national, global, online)?
*  With regards to promotional activities, are they:
a) Primarily time based (i.e. your time)
b) Based on a modest budget + your time
c) Primarily budget based (i.e. using marketing communications
agencies and / or marketing staff or freelancers)
*  Have sufficient numbers of customers heard of you?
*  Are you generating sufficient sales enquiries?
*  How are you measuring your marketing results?
*  What does the measurement tell you?

Are you happy with your marketing strategy? Do you have enough customers? If you could use some  help, you can join The Marketing Compass, attend one of our events, send me an email or call me on 01628 773128.