3 simple steps for your quarterly marketing check in
Most businesses start the year with great ideas — and high hopes — for their marketing. But, by the time you hit April, you often find that client projects, day-to-day tasks, and the occasional crisis, have helped derail even the most robust marketing plans.
Which makes this the perfect time to conduct a quarterly marketing check in.
By conducting a simple audit of your marketing efforts, you’ll gain the information you need to assess whether your marketing is working and which strategies are paying off and which you should probably abandon.
Not sure where to begin?
There are three key areas to consider:
1. Your goals.
During your last business/marketing audit, you likely defined the direction you want to take the business and developed concrete goals to help you get there.
This is the ideal time to remind yourself of those goals and assess whether your current marketing programs are in alignment with them.
For example, maybe you decided that you were going to narrow the type of client you serve or try to ramp up sales of a particular product or service. Maybe your goals were more closely linked to how you want the business to run.
So, are you meeting those goals? Are your marketing efforts bringing in the right type of customer, increasing sales in the way you planned, or allowing you to take the business in the right direction?
Take each of your marketing strategies in turn and ask yourself, “Why are we doing this?” Do you have a valid answer? If not, it’s definitely time for a rethink.
2. Your content strategy.
You knew this bit was coming…it’s time to look at your analytics!
Your social media engagement:
If you’re investing time or money in your social channels, you need to know how they’re performing. But it isn’t always a case of more followers, more sales.
In fact, even if your follower numbers are holding steady but you can see your engagement is through the roof and you’re getting plenty of comments, shares, and (non-spammy) DMs, it’s a good sign you’re doing something right.
Look for patterns in posts that are performing well and use those to shape your ongoing social media strategy.
Your opt-ins:
Look at how new people are entering your business orbit. Are you gaining new email subscribers via social posts, lead magnets, courses, or freebies on your website?
If some of your opt-ins are flying, while others have failed to hit the mark, you know which to optimize and promote, and which to tweak or change altogether.
Your inquiries:
Tracking where new business inquiries are coming from can be illuminating. You can see whether your website is pulling its weight, whether your social strategy is paying dividends, or whether those guest blog posts or podcast spots are worth their weight in gold.
When you know exactly where new customers are finding you, you can invest more time and more money in what’s working and refine anything that might be under-performing.
3. Your blindspots.
We all exist — to an extent — in our own little business echo chambers, which can lead to blindspots. Maybe you already have an inkling about what yours might be.
But if not, dedicate some time to thinking about what you might be missing, about what you might not be seeing, and about whether you’re really being as innovative as you could be.
As the leader, are you really creating a culture of innovation, or could you benefit from having an outside perspective?
If you think you could use some fresh eyes on your business marketing strategy, I am here to help. Contact me now for a free marketing proposal.