In this guest blog written by Nicole Martin of Pinpoint Marketing Consultancy Ltd and Philippa Hatch, a marketing VA at Pink Spaghetti, we discuss and suggest 4 steps and tips to making the most of your marketing.
As we are midway through the year, now is a great time to carry out a marketing review or audit of what’s working and what isn’t and then develop these ideas into possibilities for the rest of Q3 and Q4.
Here are the 4 steps to making the most of your marketing:
Marketing review – step 1
Firstly, review what you as a business has, doesn’t have and what is or isn’t working marketing wise. What processes do you have, where are your successes coming from, where are your leads coming from? It is all about asking questions, the right questions.
Then as a team or on your own as the business owner or with an outsourced marketer, knowing where the business is now and having an audit or a review of this will help set the scene and lay the foundations. Questions to ask yourself and the business look at leads and sources, marketing channels, reporting, competition, messaging and so on.
The key things you are trying to establish so you can know where to spend your time and money are areas like:
Performance
Channel effectiveness
Market analysis
Customer engagement
Budget
Marketing strategy – step 2
Secondly, invest in a marketing strategy. A marketing strategy is like the foundations of your marketing. The strategy covers off:
Objective Setting – setting goals and knowing your why (including competitor analysis, keyword review, market research, website review, social media profiles review and SMART goal setting). Plus one pager
Defining the messaging – the wording used to attract your audience and understanding your niche/USP
Pinpointing a strategy – this is the blue sky thinking by us before the doing which also now includes a vision board (a set of how to use the vision board instructions will be included.)
Refining the target audience – your ideal client avatar, plus your prospects, leads and then your customers
Developing the tactics – what marketing channels to use plus collaborations
This is the knowledge and rationale which will in turn feed into the creation of a marketing plan.
Marketing plan – step 3
Thirdly, now you know your basics of your marketing eg who you want to target and what you want to say to them, this needs to be turned into a marketing plan of action.
Implementing the plan – this section is split into 3 phases along with outline budgets. Phase 1, the foundations. Phase 2, the one-off campaign and 90-day marketing activity. And phase 3, a 30-day mini marketing plan. Plus a marketing roadmap
Measuring and evaluation – knowing the results then the ROI.
In Pinpoint Marketing’s opinion, growth is all down to planning. As a business owner you need to know your strategy. Then you can start to write and create your marketing plan. Marketing shouldn’t be seen as a tick box exercise, and it is important to know your business why and to know the purpose of your marketing. Pinpoint feels the majority of your successes will be down to careful planning, therefore giving your business time and attention via such a plan is the way forward. The benefits of a plan will help you get organised, be logical and build foundations. A plan will save you time and money but remember that a marketing plan is different to a business plan.
Marketing plan implementation – step 4
Lastly, your bespoke marketing plan needs to be implemented and actioned. Depending on the time, resources and skills you and your team possess, what next?
Is outsourcing the marketing an option? What can be outsourced and what do you need to consider? …
This is the time to be honest with yourself about the skills and resources you have within your team. Do you or a team member have the time to dedicate to writing and scheduling regular social media posts, putting together newsletters and tracking responses and engagement or organising an event? If the answer is ‘not really we’re busy enough as it is!’, then outsourcing to a specialist Virtual Assistant may be the answer.
The next question is what exactly could be outsourced? To help answer this, consider these examples. Your marketing plan recommends sending a monthly newsletter to all your contacts. Would you or a team member be able to pull together the content for this, but wouldn’t know where to start with the emailing software? This could easily be managed by a VA team. Or if attending exhibitions and organising client events is part of your plan, you may have the sales manager to attend the events, but do you have the administrative resources to organise and plan logistics?
A VA business offers flexible options, so could put together a bespoke implementation package based on your individual needs that covers regular work like social media and newsletters with the ability to take on additional projects, such as events when required.
What next in making the most of your marketing
A marketing audit will enable you as the business or practice owner to see where the business is situation wise, determine where you want to go with goals, a reason and purpose and work out how you can get there using marketing.
Or book a discovery call with Nicole and Philippa here
