From my experience a marketing budget is often an after thought.  The last thing entrepreneurs think about or plan for.  While it’s fine to make compromises,(all early growth stage companies usually have to) it’s where you decide to make those compromises that can affect your revenue growth.  Too often I am asked for marketing help and then reminded that there is only a shoe string budget. While there are of course always marketing tactics that cost little money they aren’t necessarily the ones that will help you grow your business the fastest.

Just when you thought you were done, you realize that the campaign measurements aren’t necessarily conclusive.  Or you’re left with a lingering doubt as to whether the response was an aberration perhaps affected by a one time event. Smart marketers always retest results even positive ones to ensure before the budget is spent on a costly roll-out that they are fairly secure in a predictable outcome.

Once you have launched your marketing campaigns you will measure your outcome.  To have analytics that are meaningful and useful guess what, you have to plan for them before you launch your campaigns?  As your marketing plan will reflect goal accomplshment through the tactics you choose so the analytics will tell you how successful you were in accomplishing the goals. 

If you’ve been reading the previous posts in this series then you know that I am a strong recommender of planning, planning, planning before you spend precious resources on marketing programs.  But if you’ve been through the planning phases then it’s time to develop the marketing plan and pull the trigger.  The marketing plan itself must take into consideration not only resources and time but most importantly you need to consider how your likely prospects get and absorb information.

I’ve worked in marketing for many years and there is one truism that has held throughout my career which is, “Murphy’s Law reigns supreme.”  Yes, if it can go wrong it will go wrong and the only way to protect yourself against an unsuccessful outcome is with contingency plans.  Please notice I used the plural here.  It’s not good enough to just have one back-up plan. I encourage all the entrepreneurs I work with to have contingency plans to improve their chance of success.  When something goes askew of your business predictions you may not have time to work though an alternative plan. Being ready to change direction or make a course correction can save a business from losing market share.

Annually entrepreneurs need to set business goals.  Generally these are related to business growth but they can cover any of the normal business functions from sales and marketing to employee management and operations. Well written goals help business owners focus on what’s important so take your time when crafting them.

Writing good goals is as much science as art as they should be measurable and have an estimated time frame for accomplishment. Marketing plans should only be written once the business goals are established. Too often entrepreneurs rush into marketing activities without taking this very important step of writing clear measurable goals and then are disappointed when the marketing doesn’t work. 

The one thing everyone is willing to share is his or her opinion.  Bad news if it’s your in-laws but great news if it’s your customers.  In my experience working with small business professionals rather than being the first line of defense it’s often left out of the playbook all together. No matter what it is your selling asking for customer feedback, insights, and unfulfilled needs should be part of your organizational policies.

Making it standard practice among all employees (so who in your organization doesn’t touch a customer or potential customer?) and institutionalizing it as a regular procedure is a key to business success. Create a list of questions that can be asked during customer interactions. Here’s a few to get you started:

I recently agreed to administer the client database for a non-profit organization I volunteer for along with managing their email promotions.  I wasn’t surprised to find a large number of  unidentified client segments in their database. When you have many hands touching a data resource coupled with staff turnover it doesn’t take long for the data to go awry. I was once again reminded of the strategic importance client data management plays in the success of sales and marketing.

Like Jim Gilbert, I get asked by clients what they can expect from putting the time into developing a social media strategy.  The answer of course is it depends.  Jim, a fellow social media strategist and blogger came up with 9 immutable laws of Social Media Marketing to help clients set expectations.  With Jim’s permission here they are:

In preparing materials for a social media 101 seminar I was looking for an example of how a local small business might be using social media to market their business.  Since I was using restaurants as a reference for how web 2.0 and social networking have changed forever the way we reach customers I decided to check out what my favorite local diner was up to.

I live in NJ and we have diners on almost every corner which makes it a very competitive landscape. I was delighted to see they had a robust web site which had a gallery of restaurants photos and menus along with providing   web visitors an opportunity to sign up for coupons, special offers, events and more.

I also saw they were supporting a local charity.  A nice way to build even better relationships with their customers and distinguish themselves from their competitors.  Afterall if the local diner restaurants are similar might I not want to patronize the one with a heart?