The Q4 Freak Out Has Begun!
Clare Price
Marketing System to Accelerate Value Creation | Marketing Solutions for Succession Planning from Three Months to Three Years || Add a Fractional CMO to your Exit Planning Team to Drive More Value Faster
It’s official. It’s September. For many business owners the Q4 freak out has begun!?
This is the time you look at your numbers and say OMG “I’m not even close to my sales goal for the year.”
And the big question is: What happened??? ??
The bigger question is: What do I do now?
The knee jerk response is usually to scramble to find those new clients, more sales, higher revenue.
This churn almost invariably leads to more frantic activity but usually not better results.
Don’t panic! Do this instead.
Stop. Take a breath and see where you are.?
And the best way to do that is with a marketing audit.
Understanding the Marketing Audit
Let's start by demystifying the term. A marketing audit is a comprehensive health checkup for your company’s marketing strategies and activities.
It involves a thorough examination of your past, present, and planned marketing. Think of it as an expert diagnoses to uncover insights that pave the way for revenue and sales improvements.
Why is it Crucial?
Neglecting a marketing audit can have real consequences. Our client DynamicTech Solutions was too busy filling orders and onboarding customers to bother with a marketing audit.
They believed their strategies were foolproof and the market would keep loving their products. Oh, how wrong they were.
As customer needs evolved, DynamicTech Solutions found themselves losing ground to competitors who adapted swiftly to emerging trends.
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Without a clear understanding of their marketing effectiveness, they couldn’t diagnose the real problem and struggled to reverse the decline in sales and revenue.
Focus Now. Plan Your Future.
At Octain a Q4 audit is?a two-step process.
Step 1: Address the urgency of Q4 with a discovery day.? Here we focus on closing revenue gaps and finding new revenue opportunities to hit Q4 goals in a three-hour planning session with your management team. We take a few days – no more than a week – to analyze the data, evaluate alternatives and produce recommendations for quick wins.
Step 2: Plan for 2025.? Our formal marketing audit covers all the bases to set your team up for a strong start to next year with a solid blueprint so that when Q4 2025 rolls around, you are on track with this year’s panic attack a distant memory.
Better Data. Better Results.
Here is Octain’s process for conducting a marketing audit complete with a download link to our revenue maximizer scorecard.
1.??? Gather all the relevant information needed for the audit: all current marketing materials, programs and campaign data: anything the client has done for marketing in the last 12-18 months.
2.??? Conduct a Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis.
3.??? Conduct a competitive analysis review of your top 3-5 competitors: Analyze the marketing strategies of key competitors and Identify areas where competitors may have a competitive advantage.
4.??? Review your Ideal Customer Profile and personas. Conduct 3-5 customer interviews and incorporate any marketing data here: segmentation, personas, satisfaction and loyalty related data.
6.??? Perform a digital presence assessment to evaluate the company’s online, web and social media presence and assess the effectiveness of digital marketing strategies to identify new opportunities for engagement.
7.??? Bring it all together for analysis and evaluation, looking for what is working, what is not working, and what new opportunities exist for your products or services.
8.??? Present your key findings in a live group session to get your team on the same page: understanding the results, setting goals and assigning next steps for making changes to their marketing blueprint.
Get started with our revenue maximizer card. Download here.
Or book a call here and get your marketing moving in the right direction.?
Stay Out in Front?! Providing Powerful Competitive Intelligence to Executives Making Critical Decisions | Servicing CEOs, CSOs, CMOs, Brand Managers & CI Leaders | Keynote Speaker and Workshop Facilitator | CI Fellow
6 个月Clare Price Great suggestion to conduct a marketing audit. I don't think many of us small business owners do it....definitely not when things are going well and easy to talk ourselves out of the spend associated with such an audit when we are behind goal. So when the heck are we supposed to commission this audit? Haha. I think the timing right now is perfect for business owners to consider this (regardless of results to-date), to help boost Q4 revenue to end the year strong and walk into 2025 with better line of sight of emerging revenue. Great post!
Fractional CMO | Marketing Strategist
6 个月A Marketing Audit can help so much right now. Really learn and understand what you're doing wrong -- and right. And use 4th quarter to reassess and repair the "wrongs". You have an entire quarter to turn things around AND add in some "Fast Cash Campaigns" in the 4th quarter to help out financially - PLUS set you up for success in 1st Quarter 2025. (Remember - if you don't prospect in 4th quarter, you'll have no one to call in 1st quarter!) Ask Clare Price (or anyone on her team) about a Marketing Audit.
Speaker | Author | Mentor Science & Tech Execs to Drive Decisions Faster| HOW-TO Model??Creator | Your Guide to Telling 'Stories that Stick' to Stakeholders
6 个月September always feels like a reality check, doesn’t it? It’s easy to get caught up in the Q4 pressure, but there’s still time to pivot. What’s the one action you’re focusing on to finish the year strong, Clare Price?
Revenue Producing Leaders ?? your impact & income | You’re in the room where it happens ?? | Be Invaluable | GSD | You know there's more | ?? Bender | Marathon Runner/Triathlete ????♀? ??♀???♀?
6 个月Clare Price so many people are freaking out right now since we’re in September! So much so I’m going to post about it too from a career standpoint. Thanks for the great info on what a marketing audit really is. What’s the biggest marketing mistake you see organizations making in Q4?
Executive Assistant | Bachelor's in Political Science and Government
6 个月Clare Price Great article! The emphasis on conducting a marketing audit to address Q4 goals is timely and valuable. I've found that a data-driven approach is essential for making informed decisions and optimizing marketing efforts.