Transform, Change or Reorganize Your Marketing Approach – Where Do I Start? Part 2

A strong and effective marketing professional will constantly evaluate the business goals to keep them at the center of the marketing plan. It’s also important to be ready with the right resources, technology, knowledge, talented staff and third party resources; and the know-how to make the best use of them.

You won’t have to look far to determine the effectiveness of your current marketing initiatives or discover signs that you need to make changes. But many times key signs overlooked areas are feedback and analysis. Feedback can be from your customers, key influences in the buying process, vendors, staff, key stakeholders and even your competitors, to name a few.

Analysis can be of your marketing efforts, customers, competitors and even your distribution channel partners.

Let’s take a look at a few areas when conducting analysis:

? Consider whether you are prepared with the resources needed to scale up and accommodate growth. How ready are you to respond if you land a large, new account. What's the cost of acquiring that new account? Do you have the staff and are their skills up to date?

Every marketing professional’s dream is to have their efforts produce millions of new units sold, or acquire hundreds of new customers or be viewed as the leader in the industry. But what do you do if this happens? Sometimes the results are planned, and other times there are some pleasant surprises. Smart marketers are prepared.

This analysis can be done when simulations are part of the marketing strategy. If it’s not, change it. Ask business analysts in your company for help to prepare analysis or ask for their feedback on areas to analyze. Planning for success helps avoid those unpleasant conversations for extra headcount, requests for more unplanned product from your factory or need to more budget because you’ve landed that big box account.

It also helps to plan for failures as well. Agile companies today realize they need to move fast but that sometimes a mistake or failure will happen. But better earlier in your execution of a marketing launch then after you’ve spend time, money and resources to launch, only to find out your competitors beat you to the market.

These conversations can and do happen, but changing your marketing efforts to plan for change presents you as a tram player, realistic and a transparent marketing professional to senior management.

? Monitor, evaluate and learn from your competitors. Watch how they support their accounts. What services do they offer - marketing funds, customized customer service? Assess existing third-party resources. Can they offer new ideas and services? Are your partners prepared for your growth?

Sometimes a simple conversation with your customers can uncover areas you are not addressing and what your competitors are. Ask what you’re doing well, and what they would like to see improve. Take note when competitors are adding marketing staff or implementing new ways to engage and reach their audience. Pay close attention to their messaging and whether it resonates well with their customers. It could also resonate with your customers and drive them to the competitors.

Be prepared to change direction. Performing A/B testing of messages is one way if marketing efforts begin to stagnate. Go to Plan B, maybe the market has changed from the time you created your plan – this can and does happen in fast-paced environments.

? And don’t forget to gather data from your internal customers such as your sales teams. Some marketers develop the plans using only marketing experts and are then surprised when sales teams don’t embrace it.

    Your sales teams have great access to customers and business partners. Be sure to include them in your analysis and use that information when planning. For example – will your customers or partners need funding or resources to implement your marketing plan? If so, how much and what’s the ROI versus using a different marketing tool or tactic in your launch.

By fully understanding your resources, current business and plans for the future through feedback and analysis, you will know whether you have what is needed to execute and grow.

A changing environment demands that you reorganize or make substantial changes. Refer back to the current business and revenue goals. Are they still the focus?  Are your existing marketing platforms still relevant, current and operating as efficiently as possible? Is your marketing plan on track to support and drive the business toward its goals?

It’s not easy, transformation takes time but the results are well worth the effort. Be brave, be bold!

Are you passionate about marketing too?

Click here to get a copy of my new marketing book to read about my case study focused on change and lessons learned.