Are you frustrated with the lack of enquiries your marketing is generating?

Whilst it’s easy to blame the specific marketing activities you’ve implemented (adverts, mailings etc.), the reason may be more fundamental than that. Now’s the time to review your marketing processes to make sure they are delivering the results you want.

Ask yourself:
1. Do we have a robust marketing plan in place?

This plan should set out:

• What activities you intend to do throughout the year;
• Who you are targeting;
• What messages need to be communicated;
• Who will be responsible for implementation;
• What budget has been assigned;

A lack of a marketing plan means your marketing becomes haphazard, rather than being focused and proactive.

2. Is our database/CRM fit for purpose?
If you can’t easily access information about your clients and prospects for marketing purposes, you will no doubt be wasting a lot of time. You’ll also probably be working with out of date information and in many cases choosing the ‘let’s not bother option’ because it just seems too complicated to pull together a list of clients in a specific grouping.

An up to date, well-populated database (ideally which links to all other client data you hold) will make it easier to contact specific groups, speed up the process and make your marketing activities much more effective.

3. Do we have sufficient internal marketing resource to achieve our goals?
When it comes to marketing – whose eyes do you look into? Do you have an in-house experienced marketing person who handles everything? Is it one of the partners who fit it in around chargeable time? Are you making the most of your admin staff to help make your marketing happen? Frequently, a lot of firms have some great marketing ideas but through lack of time (and sometimes inclination) they fail to execute these ideas.

Another common problem is you may have a spurt of marketing activities over a couple of months and then do nothing for a year. Your marketing will be much more effective if you have in place a steady stream of different marketing activities throughout the year, so have you got the internal resource to help you achieve that? If not recruiting a part or full-time marketing person could be the answer or consider outsourcing to appropriate marketing specialists. However…..

4. Are the external agencies we use helping us achieve our marketing objectives?
Many businesses outsource their website, social media, telemarketing and other marketing related activities to external consultants or agencies. However, it’s important to regularly review these suppliers. Are they delivering what you want, how you want it and when you want it? If not, you need to have a conversation with them to resolve the situation and get things back on your track. Alternatively, consider looking at other suppliers. With the likes of websites, social media and digital marketing activities, the technology and trends change very quickly so it’s important to make sure your suppliers are also up to date.

5. Are we proactively cross-selling our services?
Whilst you may have told your staff to identify other services which your clients can benefit from, you cannot rely on just telling them the once. Staff, Partners and Directors all need to be regularly reminded to do this. Add a prompt on client meeting agendas and job lists, mention it in staff meetings and share success. When someone has sold another service tell everyone how the opportunity was spotted, how it’s benefited the client and what additional income it has brought into the firm.

6.  Do we know which marketing activities are most effective?
You should be actively logging what responses you get from your marketing activities. E.g.

• Responses from mailings and adverts.
• Click thru rates on email newsletters and which topics seem most popular.
• Traffic going to your website.
• The number of sales appointments made and the quality of the prospects.

There’s many steps you can take to measure your marketing activities, so make sure you log them and review the feedback regularly to see what’s working best for you.

I would suggest you review your marketing support and infrastructure annually. In doing so you get a better idea as to whether you’re marketing activities are being as effective as they could be and should take appropriate action if they aren’t.