Module 8 – Exploring Your Marketing Protentional

Marketing is the lifeblood of every business. It might be paid, low-cost, or free, but you need it if you want to sell your products and services. Marketing will also help you build your brand and raise awareness of your business. Whatever you are doing now may be working to bring in revenue, but as you grow your business, the future direction of your marketing strategy is crucial.

In this module you’ll evaluate your current marketing activities and reflect on what needs to change to reflect your growth.

Verify What is Working

Before looking at what you might want to change in terms of your marketing, it’s key to review what’s happening in your business now.

You’ll have some sense of the marketing milestones you’ve hit over the last year, but that might be based on gut feeling rather than a specific audit. Check the facts by taking a detailed look back at the last 12 months with these questions:

• Did we achieve our goals?
• Has our target market changed?
• Did our marketing message penetrate the market?
• Is our brand clearly recognized?
• Did we make the sales we wanted?

The achievements you’ve made have been done through the use of marketing tools and strategies. Scrutinize these marketing tactics both online and offline by looking at your sales metrics, such as conversion rates:

• What gives you the best financial return? You may not be paying for advertising yet, but remember that the time spent on spreading the word about your offers also has a cost
• What gets your brand the most exposure?
• What marketing do you enjoy doing?
• Where can you improve?

This information will be crucial when you come to make decisions about changes in your marketing.

New Marketing to Grow Your Business

In order to grow, you might need additional ways of marketing. They may cost more than you spend currently, and this will be part of the investment in your scaled up business. However, more effective marketing can make your business more efficient, save time and, of course, bring in more customers.

For example, you might consider:

• Starting to use webinars to sell products and services
• Setting up a content marketing system
• Taking paid advertising on Facebook
• Adding video into your marketing.

When you put together your Business Growth Plan, you’ll make decisions on where to make changes in your marketing tactics.

Key Takeaways:

• Not all marketing strategies work for all business, so you need to be selective.
• To achieve growth, you may need to alter your marketing tactics.

Action Steps:

1. Quick Win: Note down how successful you think your marketing is now, before you look in detail at the other questions. This will give you an idea of how tuned-in you are to your marketing.
2. Take a look back at the last 12 months and ask yourself the questions listed in your Action Guide.
3. Review your current marketing tactics both online and offline by looking at your sales metrics, such as conversion rates. Ask yourself the questions listed in your Action Guide.
4. Write down which marketing tactics you think would best support your business growth.