As 2014 is coming to a close (we can tell by the plethora of holiday décor in every retail store), we want you to seriously consider your marketing strategy for 2015. If you don’t already have your plan in place – and some do – you may not be sure where to begin. Our number one recommendation is to look backward before looking forward, meaning assess your marketing efforts from 2014 and how each one contributed to the bottom line before embarking on a plan for the next 12-months.
Two CQ Partners colleagues recently co-authored an article in Hearing Review that sums up this idea perfectly: Know Your Marketing; Know Your ROI. By having a defined marketing plan and tracking its efficacy (plus course correcting along the way), you’ll be able to capture beneficial trends from your data and eliminate wasteful spending.
But first, you have to actually develop the plan. After allocating 10-12% of your overall budget towards marketing, we recommend:
- Using a targeted multi-media approach with frequency and consistency (including direct mail, print and digital media)
- Ensuring you are communicating with both your current customers and prospects via mail, telemarketing, etc.
- Creating messaging that resonates with your target audiences; i.e. speak to individuals about what matters to them via their preferred communication channels – email, print, text, etc.
Once your plan is up and running, track the results. As recommended in Know Your Marketing; Know Your ROI, many computer programs are available to facilitate and simplify tracking (CQ has one), but typically a person(s) in your office must physically input the response data. It’s important to consistently gather this data because you will use it to calculate your return on investment, or ROI.
Once you gather the data, then what? CQ Partners recommends a quarterly assessment of all marketing initiatives to analyze trends, assess the performance of the plan, and ensure marketing dollars are being spent wisely. Some key metrics to pay attention to: number of calls (how many times did the phone ring from each initiative), number of appointments set and number of hearing devices sold. The aggregate of these metrics will contribute to your ROI calculation. To discover how to properly calculate ROI, click here.
Remember, marketing 101 tells us that developing a plan and working that plan frequently and consistently yields success; couple that with tracking your results, calculating ROI and analyzing those results in order to tweak your plan will put you on a successful marketing trajectory.
For questions or a free 30 minute marketing consultation, contact marketing at marketing@cq-partners.com.
