The summer months are the perfect time to conduct a mid-year checkup on your marketing strategy. What’s working? What isn’t? What needs to be changed for the second half of the year? Now is the time to analyze results, assess the marketplace and make adjustments while there is still time to impact this year’s results.
Five Essential Components
Just like regular health examinations, marketing checkups can identify problems before they start. They can also pinpoint challenges in the early stages, resulting in an actionable treatment plan. Here are five tips for evaluating your year-to-date progress:
- Dust off your marketing plan. The New Year is filled with optimism and excitement for the year ahead. But what is hot in January may be cooling off by July. Review your marketing plan to see if there are goals, strategies and tactics that haven’t been addressed. Have changes in the budget or marketplace affected the success of the plan? Has the company introduced new products or services that weren’t originally anticipated?
- Refresh your website. Now is a good time to polish and update content on your website. Use analytics to see which pages are being visited most (and least). Check all internal and external links to ensure they are functional. Add new visual content, compelling calls to action, recent case studies, fresh testimonials and new media coverage.
- Check on sales alignment. It’s easy to lose touch with the sales team but alignment between sales and marketing is essential for generating leads and closing sales. Make a point of asking salespeople for feedback on marketing initiatives to date. What do they see or hear in the marketplace and with the competition? Have customers’ needs changed? Are there customer success stories that can be shared? What materials and support do the salespeople need to close more deals?
- Dive deep into data. Technology helps marketers gain rich insight into their customers, prospects and success of marketing efforts. Some key metrics to focus on include website page views, time spent on the website, content downloads, social shares and, of course, return on investment. Other performance indicators to consider are email opens and click-throughs, customer acquisition cost, customer engagement through comments and shares, and qualified leads generated by individual campaigns.
- Clean house. In any marketing plan, some initiatives will perform well, and others will miss the mark. When something isn’t meeting expectations, don’t be afraid to drop it and try something new. When something is successful, build on it and see if aspects can be applied to other initiatives.
A midyear marketing checkup helps companies identify positive and negative trends, assess what’s working and what isn’t, and fine-tune marketing plans for future success. When executed correctly, the audit can better target potential customers, reduce costs and support strategic enterprise objectives. To learn more about conducting a midyear marketing checkup or developing a marketing plan that drives bottom-line results, contact Trade Press Services today.