The annual business planning process presents an excellent opportunity to review your marketing efforts and ensure you are acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers. Marketing strategies constantly must be reviewed to ensure business goals are being met. In competitive conditions, marketing is more important than ever.
Simply put, marketing is the art and science of creating awareness, selling your product or service, getting customers to buy again, and getting them to buy more. Marketing includes a range of activities, including: advertising, public relations, public relations, direct marketing and the Internet. While marketing is a critical component of every business, it is one of the least understood and underutilized components of a business. Utilizing metrics can help business leaders better understand the effect marketing activities can have on driving profits.
An organization’s business development and marketing functions must be responsive and flexible to deliver results consistently. Flexibility is only the beginning; business development and marketing also must be accountable for providing a measurable return on investment. Less than robust economic conditions provide an excellent opportunity to validate the effectiveness of strategies and programs.
Within a corporation, marketing’s strategic role may include creating brand awareness, promoting products and services, identifying sales opportunities, supporting the sales function, and most importantly, supporting and complementing the strategic mission of the company. Companies are constantly changing strategic focuses, right-sizing and reallocating operating budgets. Marketing isn’t immune to adjustments and changes to its programs, projects and budgets.
Measurements of marketing activities represent a growing trend in business. Certain initiatives, such as telemarketing and direct mail, are more easily measured than others. Other programs, such as advertising and public relations, are a little more nebulous and difficult to measure directly. In addition, it can be difficult to measure the value of long-term and existing marketing programs. While this doesn’t mean programs should be halted, management should review the activities with a focus on measurement and return on investment. To that end, there are various tools and resources available to benchmark marketing activities and projects to ensure the company’s targeted ROI is met or exceeded.
The marketing planning and budgeting process is an excellent starting point to review the relationship between marketing activities and sales efforts. The two should be complementary. Setting clear and measurable goals will enhance the overall effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts. This goal-setting exercise must take into account historical and forecasted revenues of distinct business segments.
Expenditures on various tactical elements should be consistent with these goals. As goals change, marketing efforts must modify to identify and capitalize upon new opportunities. Capitalizing on new opportunities doesn’t always require incremental expensesit may involve a reallocation of existing dollars.
Periodically review the marketing strategy and budget to maintain consistency with reviews of other operating departments. These reviews will confirm that the marketing function is consistent with the company’s overall mission. The reviews will also help determine if marketing dollars are being utilized effectively and efficiently and will ensure the company is maximizing its return on investment.
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