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How Does Your Marketing Measure Up?

22.03.10

22.03.2010 Part 4: The TLC Business Marketing Formula

Here we are, it's part four of the TLC Business Marketing Formula.

It’s results time.This is what it all boils down to. Has your preparation, inspiration and perspiration paid off? Has it delivered a return on investment (ROI)? Surely you want to know where all the time and money has gone and what it has achieved?

Well, it’s amazing how many businesses don’t ever find this out. Sadly, very little marketing is actually measured, with the success of far too many campaigns simply rated according to gut feeling and assumption.

This is where businesses seem to get stuck in a cycle of marketing that doesn’t work or achieves very little. It’s usually because they’ve never spent any time evaluating why, and taking steps to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Like preparation, evaluation is critical but all too often neglected. Many small businesses seem to overlook it because they deem it too costly and time consuming, or see it as something that only applies to the ‘big boys’ with their multi million pound marketing budgets. Wrong! Measuring results should be doubly important to small businesses because success, and often survival, depends on their marketing delivering a return.

It’s all about being rigorous, organised and putting systems in place to do the job. It needn’t cost a great deal of time or money. Google Analytics is free. Putting a code on a piece of direct mail is straightforward. Asking your customers for that code shouldn’t be common practice. Tracking who’s opening your emails is all down to using the right software and taking full advantage of the tools available to you.

There you have it – results! We love them and you should too, because nothing beats seeing your hard work, time and money pay off.

Rebecca Pash, Marketing Manager, TLC Business

Bucket Loads of Perspiration

02.03.10

02.03.10 Part 3: The TLC Business Marketing Formula

We’ve reached part three in a five-part blog all about our TLC Business Marketing Formula.

This is where it all happens. It’s time to get busy and put all the preparation and plans into action. We like to call this ‘doing’ part the ‘perspiration’ phase because, believe us, it takes a great deal of hard work, commitment and perseverance.

If you’ve done sufficient preparation and planning, which we swear by, (see part one and two) then you have a head start. You can be confident that the carefully considered campaign you’re about to embark on is saying the right thing to the right people.  Now it’s about committing to your plan and ticking all of the boxes; ensuring you’re doing the best possible with the resources available to you.

Needless to say, it’s often easier said than done. It’s a common mistake that in ‘doing’ marketing, businesses get bogged down with the detail, carried away or sidetracked. This is where the commitment and perseverance come in.

Make a concerted effort to stick to the plan and keep your objectives in mind. Try to work with clarity and consistency throughout the lifetime of a campaign and ensure that everyone involved has a clear understanding of what you’re trying to achieve. It requires attention to the tiniest details; checking and testing to ensure that everything’s working and looking as it should. Errors, inaccuracies and poor quality will only deflect from the campaign’s objectives and undermine a business’ credibility.

Last but not least, part of delivering a campaign is ensuring that systems are in place to measure its results. A campaign’s success cannot be rated according to gut feelings or assumptions. Without the correct tools in place to measure results, the campaign will never meet your business objectives and give you something to feel smug about. We love results, and we’ll teach you to too…next time.

Rebecca Pash, Marketing Manager, TLC Business