Marketing Checkup Worksheet

Businesses in the US spend billions of dollars each year trying to get people to buy things. You encounter hundreds, perhaps thousands of marketing messages, every day: social media ads, radio ads in the car, brand badges on vehicles, banner ads on websites, logos on clothing, wraps on buses, screens at the gas pump, and more. In a world short on attention and long on advertising, how do you make your message stand out?

For most companies, marketing is a huge expense, in money and time. Here are some questions to make sure you’re getting a return on that significant investment.

Strategy:

·       Can you articulate your overall marketing strategy? Do the people in your company responsible for producing ads or negotiating marketing contracts know what that strategy is?

·       What do you think would happen if you cut your marketing expenditures in half? Could you eliminate 10% or 20% without affecting your business at all?

·       Do you have a good understanding of the people you want to reach with your marketing? Who is your ideal customer?

·       What are your competitors doing differently than you? If they’re zigging, should you zag? For example, if their marketing focuses on price, can you find a better niche?

·       What do your team members think of your company’s marketing?

·       If you’re spending money on generic branding, or “getting your name out there,” do you have any anecdotal or empirical data that suggest this investment justifies its costs?

·       Do any of your marketing efforts do more for your ego than your bottom line?

·       What message are you spending all that money to deliver? Does it give prospective customers any compelling reason to do business with you? Are your marketing messages consistent with your company values?

·       Do you currently have more business than you can handle such that you should reduce demand on your operations by reducing your marketing efforts?

Execution

·       When was the last time you evaluated each of your media purchases to compare its cost to the results? How do you measure the success of a particular advertising method?

·       Are you communicating effectively with the people most likely to do business with you again, your previous and existing customers?

·       Do you know how many visitors your website attracts monthly? When was the last time you used your own website? Do all the functions work?

·       Are your logos, fonts, and graphics the same across all your marketing channels such that you have one distinct look?

·       Are you sending out media releases when your company does something newsworthy?