When you go on a journey, it pays to know three things – where your journey starts, where your journey ends and how you are going to get there.
We instinctively know them for journeys we make every day. Just jump in the car, start the engine and off we go on our merry way. Simple!
The journey to growth for many small to medium businesses is often not planned as well as it should be and so the outcomes seldom match the aspirations.
Part of the reason is that it is not an easy task. It takes time and effort to decide on where you are going and to develop the right strategy and plan to get there. (I will cover these in a future blog). For now, I would like to focus on the starting point for the journey.
Establishing the starting point is an essential part of the process. Imagine astronauts planning to land on the moon with only a vague understanding of earth gravity, orbit, rotation and the distance to the moon. It would either be a very short trip or a very long one with the chances of a successful mission considerably reduced! From a marketing perspective, I like to start with a marketing audit. The audit does a number of things. Firstly, it is independent and not biased by internal perspectives. Secondly, it verifies what marketing activity is actually taking place as opposed to what is supposed to be happening. Thirdly, it assesses how well the marketing activity is performing against marketing goals. Perhaps most importantly, it makes recommendations on how marketing can be improved to help your business get to where it wants to go.
So before your business sets off for new horizons, take the time to have a marketing audit and you will markedly improve your chances of getting to your destination.
We instinctively know them for journeys we make every day. Just jump in the car, start the engine and off we go on our merry way. Simple!
The journey to growth for many small to medium businesses is often not planned as well as it should be and so the outcomes seldom match the aspirations.
Part of the reason is that it is not an easy task. It takes time and effort to decide on where you are going and to develop the right strategy and plan to get there. (I will cover these in a future blog). For now, I would like to focus on the starting point for the journey.
Establishing the starting point is an essential part of the process. Imagine astronauts planning to land on the moon with only a vague understanding of earth gravity, orbit, rotation and the distance to the moon. It would either be a very short trip or a very long one with the chances of a successful mission considerably reduced! From a marketing perspective, I like to start with a marketing audit. The audit does a number of things. Firstly, it is independent and not biased by internal perspectives. Secondly, it verifies what marketing activity is actually taking place as opposed to what is supposed to be happening. Thirdly, it assesses how well the marketing activity is performing against marketing goals. Perhaps most importantly, it makes recommendations on how marketing can be improved to help your business get to where it wants to go.
So before your business sets off for new horizons, take the time to have a marketing audit and you will markedly improve your chances of getting to your destination.
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