STRATEGIC MARKETING assessment
Kick-start your gameplan with a strategic Marketing assessment
Comprehensive assessment and actionable framework to identify the gaps, issues and the opportunities.
Five essential questions about a strategic marketing assessment
What is a strategic marketing assessment?
A marketing assessment, often called a marketing audit, is a service to uncover potential gaps in your current market approach and identify opportunities to improve or approach marketing differently.
It is designed to understand how well you align your marketing strategies with your business goals and if your marketing activities strategically support your objectives. With a lot of detailed information, at its highest level, it answers two key questions: Does your current marketing effectively contribute to your long-term business growth and success? If not, how does the business address this?
Why should your business or organisation do a marketing audit?
A marketing audit offers a complete picture of your marketing’s effectiveness and how it focuses its resources. Many businesses reach a point where growth has flattened, and rather than doing the same tactical promotions, social media postings, AdWords campaigns, and writing even more content, this is the time to take a step back. Doing a marketing audit helps make informed decisions on strategically driving your business forward.
When should my business consider a strategic marketing assessment?
Reviewing your current marketing state is an excellent way of starting a marketing change process. It gives everyone a fresh starting point and time to re-assess. It takes away the guessing and stops doing more of the same or trying to find that single thing to address. The reality is that there is always more than one thing; there are typically a range of areas that need to be addressed to better support the business.
Who should do the marketing assessment?
In large businesses, there are usually senior marketing leaders, such as Marketing Directors, who have the experiences, skills, and capabilities to conduct marketing assessments. However, small businesses or organisations with up to 50 employees usually have a small in-house marketing team or a few people sharing the marketing duties. For those companies, the recommendation is to bring in an external marketing consultant to do the marketing assessment, provide constructive feedback and suggestions, and provide directions.
My Strategic Marketing Assessment Methadology
A Step-by-Step Process Guide
Step 1
Initial consultation
The process begins with an initial phone or Teams meeting with key stakeholders where we discuss your marketing goals and challenges and a brief overview of your business.
Step 2
Online survey
If you agree to start the assessment, I will send you an online marketing survey to fill out. The survey takes 30-40 minutes and covers 12 critical areas. The key stakeholders should participate in the survey.
Step 3
Interviews
After receiving your survey responses, I will set up a Teams meeting (1-2 hours) to explore your answers in more detail and review any other questions I may have.
Step 4
Additional data
If you have additional data, plans, a list of activities, your website, etc., I will look at that as part of the assessment.
Step 5
Analysing the answers and the data
I will analyse your approaches, responses, feedback, and data and go through all aspects, from strategy to execution.
Step 6
Comprehensive report
The report is comprehensive, with a detailed deep dive into each area, and includes gaps, challenges, areas to address, and untapped opportunities,
Step 7
Briefing
Once the report is completed, I will schedule a video call (1 hour) to review the key findings. Typically, the best way is to send you the report and have time to absorb the information.
Step 8
Q/A session and next steps
After I have presented the findings and recommendations, we will loop back in a follow-up meeting, a question and answer session, and talk about implementation, whether you want to do that independently or with my continued guidance.
Step 9
Action Plan Development
Depending on the outcome of the strategic marketing assessment, I can help in different ways if required. For example, it makes sense for some customers to build a strategic marketing foundation and engage in a retained approach for 4-6 months to develop their strategic marketing roadmap. Others may benefit from hourly consultations to apply the insights effectively for continuous improvements.
Assess your strategic marketing approach
Quick Yes or No questions for your strategic marketing needs
For most companies, there comes a point where growth begins to slow down.
It becomes necessary to review current marketing practices, from strategy to execution, in order to enhance marketing effectiveness and align it with the company’s business plan. This is typically an opportune time to seek external guidance and marketing consultancy, enabling a shift from a purely tactical focus to a strategic marketing approach.
Consider the key elements of strategic marketing: it involves identifying necessary changes for incremental improvements.
12 strategic marketing questions
Quickly assess your status with 8 essential questions to pinpoint areas for enhancement.
How many ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ answers did you get?
Whether you’re already on the right path or in need of guidance I offers a range of collaborative options.
Transforming your marketing starts with 12 questions
Marketing impact
Have you analysed last year’s marketing performance to know what works and to avoid making the same mistakes?
P&L performance
Are you on top of the company’s historical revenue trends, sales patterns, and profitability drivers so you can better predict the future?
Market definition
Do you have a clear overview of the market and its players to determine the “best” market segment/s to be in?
Market position
Do you know if the company’s core differentiating benefit provides a winning competitive advantage?
Customer insights
Does the company regularly ask customers about their needs, preferences, and concerns to uncover valuable insights to make informed business & marketing decisions?
Business goals
Does your company have clear goals and growth assumptions, so you can align marketing objectives and optimise resources for better results?”
The brand
Does your company have a brand strategy with effective targeting and clear communication of your value proposition?
Customer centricity
Has your company mapped out your customers’ buying journey to enhance their experience and engage them more effectively?
Channel of distribution
Does your company have a channel of distribution strategy that considers revenue sources and channel decision-makers and influencers?
Marketing and innovation
Does your company develop successful go-to-market strategies that maximise revenue opportunities for new products and services?
Growth enablers
Does your company have necessary systems, processes, and capabilities in place to improve efficiency & effectiveness to enable growth for the business?
Develop the plan
Does your company have a documented marketing plan in place that serves as the blueprint for success and helps achieve the business goals?