8 signs that you need to get more strategic about marketing

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Many MDs and CEOs of ambitious growing businesses have told me, in a moment of candour, that they’re not 100% sure they know enough about marketing to make sound decisions about it.

If you suspect you might be in this group, you’re certainly not alone. You’ll be leapfrogging from one marketing technique to another, or not totally sure why your marketing bods are doing what they’re doing.

As an MD or CEO, you don’t need to do all the marketing of your business. You certainly don’t need to understand marketing minutiae. You do need to lead it. And, to do that – you need to get marketing at a strategic and practical level. The key is to know enough to make sure that hard-earned cash being spent on marketing in your business isn’t being wasted.

The tricky thing here is knowing that you don’t know! Here’s the first of three checklists to help you work out if you need to up your game when it comes to marketing. (See also: How do you know when you don’t know)

8 questions to find out if your marketing is letting you down

Sign 1: All your people describe what you do differently

• Ask yourself: If your people were asked what your business does, would they say different things?

Sign 2: Marketing spending is sporadic and reactive

• Ask yourself: Does your spending on marketing show steep peaks and troughs over the year? (allowing for seasonality)

Sign 3: You’re doing the wrong sort of work

• Ask yourself: Do you get enquiries for things you either don’t offer, or would probably rather not offer?
• See also: Leak #14 – The wrong kind of work

Sign 4: You can’t convert interest into sales

• Ask yourself: Do you get lots of enquiries that don’t turn into paying customers?
• See also: Earning the right to time

Sign 5: You don’t know where your paying customers come from

• Ask yourself: Would you struggle to break down the key sources of paying customers; and within this know which sources bring you the right kind of work?
• See also: Mindful marketing measurement

Sign 6: You’re not securing much repeat business or referrals

• Ask yourself: Would you find that very few customers have come to you from referrals or repeat business?
• See also: Commercial Karma

Sign 7: You have all your eggs in one basket

• Ask yourself: Are you overly reliant on one big customer, or one source of new business?

Sign 8: Initial growth has hit a plateau you can’t seem to move beyond

• Ask yourself: Has your business growth reached a plateau that you can’t seem to get on an upward curve?
• See also: Are you stuck on the yo-yo marketing diet?

If you recognise any of these signs, then it’s almost certain that your marketing is ripe for improvement. What’s more as an MD or CEO; you now know where to turn to start getting your business on that elusive sustainable upward curve.

© Bryony Thomas – The Watertight Marketer.