Diet for Your Marketing Plan
Before Atkins & South Beach diets and before The Biggest Loser, diets were not weight loss tools. A person’s diet was the foods he/she ate. The healthier the diet, the healthier the person. And a healthy person could accomplish more, enjoy things more and have a better life.
Today we think of a diet as a tool to help us lose weight. But most of us realize that if the diet is solely to lose weight, the weight probably will come back once we are off the diet. But if the diet helps you become healthier then the weight comes off, stays off and life gets better.
So if your Marketing & Sales plans and efforts are not moving you forward at the proper pace or at all, you need a healthier diet for them.
Here are questions you can ask to determine if your Marketing & Sales plans are healthy:
- Can I measure the results of my efforts and dollars spent (or do I even know what the results are)?
- Do my staff, partners, funders, etc. know what results we need from Marketing & Sales?
- When I make a change (i.e. new logo) or add something (i.e. on-line ads) do I have a specific result in mind (i.e. new revenue stream) or am I changing because it seemed to be time.
- Have I been able to realize new customers or revenue increases as a result of the time I spend on in-person and social networking. Or to put it another way, are the people who “like” my company spending money with my company.
- Do I have an idea of the ROI (Return on Investment) for the Marketing dollars I spend? Remember that for a small business time = money, so be sure you include the time you spend on Marketing & Sales when calculating the cost.
- Are your Marketing & Sales activities driven by someone else – competitors, trend setters, etc.? If they are, do those people know your business and do they have your interest at heart?
If you are not pleased by your answers to these questions, it may be time to put your Marketing & Sales plans on a diet. Yes, it may be time to do some of the following:
- Reduce fat – if I am paying someone else to do my Marketing could I do it as well or better and save money? Are there efforts or advertising I could spend less time and money on and not hurt my results?
- Increase fiber – Am I networking directly with my clients/customers and true prospects?
- Increase fruits and vegetables – Am I properly servicing my current clients/customers to maximize the revenue I receive from them and increase their loyalty?
- Get appropriate protein – Am I concentrating my Marketing & Sales efforts on the customers/clients that provide the bulk of my revenue?
- Limit desserts – Am I appropriately mixing the fun stuff with the have to do stuff so that my work life is balanced but profitable?
Most any business can benefit from increasing revenue without inappropriately increasing cost because that increases profit. A healthy Marketing & Sales plan is a major component of a fit ROI.
Janet Christy, Founder and President of consulting firm, Leverage & Development, LLC
Copyright 2012 Author retains ownership. All Rights Reserved.
