The Importance of Regularly Reviewing Your Marketing Strategy and Tactics

A business's marketing strategy isn’t merely a document that’s created at the start of a new financial year, printed out on nice A3 paper, and left to gather dust under a pile of paperwork on management’s desks. Craig Rosewarne, Managing Director of CR Marketing Consulting, emphasises that regularly checking in on your strategy and tactics is critical for ongoing success.

As Christmas approaches, many of us look forward to some well-deserved relaxation, sunshine, and backyard cricket. For some businesses, this is a hectic time of year, while for many B2B businesses, it’s just business as usual (unless you’re selling Christmas ham or prawns!). This period is also the perfect time to do a half-financial-year marketing strategy and marketing activity calendar check-in. Here are some top tips for best-practice marketing management throughout the year.

Cadence:
You’ve set your marketing investment budget for the year, the Marketing Assistant has planned out all the activities. Job done, right? Wrong! It’s essential to be checking in on your marketing performance at least once a quarter. This way, you can determine what’s working, what’s not, and whether it’s time to pivot on any particular activity. For example, if you’re spending a significant amount of money on hosting customer events, but hardly anyone’s turning up, and those who do are just there for the free food—why not reinvest that budget towards trade shows where you’re generating many new leads instead?
Sitting down once a quarter to review every activity and its associated ROI will put you on the path to investing your marketing budget more effectively.

ROI Measures:
It’s important to note here that not all marketing ROI measures are financial. Different marketing tactics serve various purposes, so they need different KPIs!
Think of marketing as a funnel. At the top of the funnel, your goal is to generate as many opportunities as possible. If you aim to convert 10% of your leads, you’ll need to start with around 100 opportunities.

Top-of-funnel investments—like brand awareness—are just as important as investing money in obtaining warm leads (mid/bottom of the funnel). This is assuming, of course, that not every potential customer knows about your brand (which is a safe assumption unless you’re McDonald’s or Coca-Cola). Focusing on top-of-funnel activities might not see an immediate financial return, but it will in the long run!

Strategy Check:
Six months in an industry can be a long time. What’s changed? Have there been any changes in your target audience's demographics or psychographics (like attitudes, values, or pain points)? Do they have new technologies (such as a popular new app among healthcare professionals)? When was the last time you conducted a Customer and Brand Health Survey to uncover what your customers think about you? Are your brand awareness and association measures up to date? Asking yourself all of these questions and more will help guide your strategy.
Is it time to reassess your product range? Is your product ‘tail’ taking up valuable time and resources from your sales and administration teams? Is it time to do a cull (the 80:20 rule or the ‘Pareto Principle’)? Have you ever looked at your product range from a ‘Quadrant Analysis’ perspective? Doing a simple Sales/Margin report by product and ranking your SKUs can help you sort the ‘Stars’ from the ‘Losers’.

What about new competitors? New products that are shaking up the industry? Do you seem to see more of any particular competitor brand lately (a sure sign they’ve increased their marketing spend)? Have any competitors repositioned themselves in the market?
Here’s an example of a simple brand positioning matrix. What if a new premium American burger brand entered the Australian market, should local chains like Grill’d be worried?
Should they revisit their strategy or enhance their local messaging? You betcha!

Conclusion:
“You’re only as good as the last game you played.” Things change fast, and regularly revisiting your marketing strategy and tactics ensures you’re keeping pace with the competition, and you’re investing your marketing dollars as effectively as possible. So, before you pick up that well-deserved beer, wine, or soft drink this Christmas, do your business a favour and conduct a half-yearly check-in. It will set you up to hit the ground running in January!
At CR Marketing Consulting, we specialise in assisting small to medium businesses to implement effective growth marketing strategies. Reach out to us today for a confidential conversation on how we can support your journey: info@crmarketingconsulting.au