PodCast April 2016 - Marketing Health Check

4 simple marketing health checks every business can use!

In the rush of day-to-day tasks and deadlines, keeping an eye on your marketing health may not seem like a top priority – but it is important. In this post, Pod co-founder Jodie Williams has put together a list of essential checks that every business can easily use to make sure their marketing activity is having the desired effect.

But before you begin…

Know your customers
When it comes to meeting customers’ expectations (and even exceeding them), the most fundamental thing is to truly understand your market and the needs of individual customers. You need to know what your customers are looking for, on both a functional and an emotional level. The simplest way to do this is to talk to potential and existing customers about what their pain-points are and work out how you can fulfil these needs. For example, if they need fast delivery times, can you offer next-day delivery? Identifying areas where they aren’t currently satisfied will enable you to see gaps in the market and then create a product or service that can fill them. Sometimes you will find that it’s an emotional need that’s lacking - it could be that they want to feel secure in purchasing from you, or valued by your company – and in this case you may find that changing the way that you communicate with your audience will satisfy them.

Know what makes you different
Before you undertake any marketing activities, you need to know what your differentiator is. Why should potential customers come to you? What is it that you offer your customers that your competitors do not? Whether it’s a product that performs better than anything similar, or a service that goes beyond any other, you need to shout about what makes your company unique. This should be a foundation on which you can build all of your marketing communications.

Marketing Health Checks:

1. Is your marketing working for you?
When you get caught up in day-to-day marketing activities, it’s easy to forget that your marketing plan is there to support your business targets and objectives. All of your marketing objectives should be aligned with your long-term goals, and it’s important to make these objectives SMART so that they’re easily measurable. You should be continually monitoring the results of your marketing activity to ensure that what you’re doing is helping you to meet your company goals. Check our previous Podcast for tips on how to make a marketing plan that works for your business.

2. Is your message consistent?
It won’t come as a surprise that we’re huge advocates of taking an integrated approach to marketing. Brand awareness can be enhanced by having presence across a number of online and offline channels. It’s vital to create a cohesive brand image and provide a consistent message across all channels, so that your customers have a clear understanding of your brand values. However, you also need to choose which channels you use carefully. Don’t jump on the newest platforms without considering whether it will add value and help you to reach your audience.

3. Is your marketing reaching your internal stakeholders too?
Engaging your internal stakeholders is paramount to the success of your marketing strategy; they need to be kept informed about all of your marketing activities. As brand ambassadors for your company, your internal stakeholders are well-placed to reinforce your values every time that they interact; whether that’s with your social media activities or directly with your customers. If they really buy into your values and understand the message you’re trying to convey, customers will have a positive experience no matter who they interact with within your company.

4. Are you reviewing your activities?
The only way to know whether your marketing is achieving what you intend it to achieve is by continually reviewing your activities. Looking back at what you have already done is also really useful for identifying where you can make changes and evolve campaigns to keep them fresh. In addition to the typical KPIs and metrics, ‘stop, start, continue’ meetings can help you to pick out what’s working and what isn’t – Communication within your team is crucial: make it a priority to get your team together and each say what you think you should start doing, stop doing and continue to do.