Substance and Style

    End Of Year Marketing Assessment

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    The end of the year is a good time to reflect on what is and isn’t working for your business, and make course adjustments for the next year. While you’re analyzing your marketing efforts this December, be sure to look at these nine things that are sometimes overlooked in marketing assessments:

    1. Changes to your target market. Try to see your customers or clients with fresh eyes. The world has changed a lot in the last year. Have things changed for your target market or do they have the same income, priorities, and needs they had a year ago? How can you address any changes? Additionally, consider whether your products or services are attracting any new demographics. If so, think about how you might reach them and serve their needs, while still reaching your core target audience.
    2. Customer experience. What is it like for someone to use or buy your products or services? It might not seem like marketing, but word of mouth continues to drive more sales than any other factor. People still compliment and badmouth businesses offline; social proof and customer reviews carry more weight than ever online. If you haven’t developed a system for capturing reviews or surveying customers, you should think about doing so. Keep on top of what people are saying about you online so a bad review doesn’t tank your business. Reflect on what you can do at each stage of the buyer’s journey to make the experience better for your customers.

      NB: Customer service is somewhat in flux these days, with frustrations high on all sides. Large companies outsource more and more customer service to bots (which most people hate), while retail and other service industries are undergoing a sea change as workers become fed up with rude and entitled customers. As a marketing professional, it’s important that you satisfy your customers and show them appreciation, while staying cognizant of the needs of your staff. Consider making sure customers can always talk to a person rather than having a bot handle everything. Don’t have them have to jump through so many hoops to get to a real person that they’re in a foul mood by the time they do. Reward your staff for providing good customer service without expecting them to take abuse.
    3. Your audience and content. Analyze the numbers for your followers, subscribers, and engagement, but also take the time to do a deep dive into your analytics. See what people are sticking around for and spending time with on your website. What kind of content is resonating with the people? Where do you lose readers or viewers? Identifying where people drop off from your content is helpful in identifying your audience’s interests and needs. How can you reach the people you want to appeal to?
    4. Last year’s SMART goals and KPIs. What were you hoping to accomplish at this time last year?Hopefully, you set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals and figured out KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to keep you on track (if not, make that your first priority for 2023). Think about whether you’ve been meeting your goals, but also about whether those goals are still appropriate and if you need to shift your focus. How can your marketing help you achieve your goals?
    5. Your locations. Think about where people find you. Does your physical location (if you have one) reinforce your brand and appeal to your customers? Is your website easy to find, easy to use, and well designed? Are your landing pages successful? Is your social media presence supporting your goals? Take time to reflect on everywhere you can be found and what impression you’re making there. Try to see your physical and digital locations the way someone would see them for the first time.
    6. Your marketing ROI. Think about the cost of your marketing efforts, both in dollars and time. Are you getting as much out of it as you’re putting in? Are there ways you could be streamlining processes or delegating responsibilities? Remember that you’re supposed to be working smarter, not harder. Also, remember that it’s better to abandon a strategy that isn’t working than to stick with something that is costing you too much money and effort.
    7. Your competition. It’s always a good idea to keep up with what your competition is doing, but people generally don’t revisit their competitive analyses during year-end assessments. You can learn a lot from your competition. Are they having success on channels you haven’t explored? Are they using tactics that you haven’t considered?
    8. The bottom line. Targets, goals, and KPIs are all well and good, but the bottom line is the bottom line. How does your revenue look next to your expenses? Are you on track to achieve success as you define it? How can marketing help you increase revenue and reduce expenses? 
    1. The future. Any good assessment should look ahead as much as it looks back. What do you want in the long term? If you meet the goals you have set, will you be closer to the life you want? Nothing matters if you aren’t on track to where you want to be.