How to make a smart marketing plan
The first quarter of the year is traditionally when companies update their marketing plans. Here are the top questions marketers should ask themselves before making major changes:
1. Can our sales team close the leads we generate?
This is where the rubber meets the proverbial road. Branding theory and the “four P’s” are great, but what really matters is whether the people selling your product can close their doors.
If the sales group can’t close the sales leads provided by the marketing department, you have two choices:
- Hire another sales team (or retrain the one you have)
- Retarget your lead generation so it creates better leads
Frankly, if you’re successful with this part of your marketing plan, you can probably skip everything else except making the lead generation process less expensive.
2. To what extent do our indicators generate the right behaviors?
Many marketing groups focus on activities rather than measurable results, under the assumption that these activities are “strategic” and therefore too important to measure.
For example, a marketing group may have a goal to “create a brochure” or “build a website” simply because businesses are supposed to have brochures and websites.
Tick-the-box measurement leads to unnecessary expense and the kind of marketing that looks good in a pocketbook but doesn’t help your business be more successful.
3. Can we effectively block competitors during the sales process?
In my experience, most marketing groups only understand the competition in terms of comparing features or functions. Unfortunately, these comparisons are not very useful because:
- Most customers don’t care unless they’ve been convinced that a specific feature is an absolute necessity.
- Feature lists offer diminishing returns. Example: Your product has 100 features while your competitor’s has 99. Shrug your shoulders.
- They hide the forest for the trees. Most customers care about how your product can help them rather than working details.
Ideally, your marketing plan should outline how salespeople can position your business as the best potential partner for whatever your customers want to accomplish.
4. What are we doing that isn’t generating good leads?
When I meet with marketing groups, I’m often amazed to find programs that are difficult to set up and maintain but have very little impact on company sales.
For example, many marketing groups bizarrely believe that they “must” participate in social media even when participating in social media creates no leads.
Likewise, many companies continue to attend the same trade shows even when they don’t come away with enough leads to justify the effort and expense.
5. Have we ruthlessly eliminated biz-blab from our marketing?
Biz-blab (aka “corporate-speak”) is a manifestation of laziness, fuzzy thinking, and lack of creativity.
For example, a marketing goal to create “state-of-the-art” products is meaningless at best and distracts from determining what customers want to buy at worst.
With marketing plans, as with all marketing materials, the amount of biz-blab is inversely proportional to market success.
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