It’s time to clean up your marketing plan. Why not do it when you’re traditionally supposed to be giving your home a good scrub, packing away your winter clothes and clearing some mental cobwebs thanks to the season’s warmth, sunshine and all those lovely flowers everywhere?
So what do we mean by cleaning up your marketing plan? Well, remember when it was the top of the year and you sat down to figure out how 2014 would go? Now we’re a quarter into the year, and it’s time to see how your goals are playing out. Have you hit the markers that you set for yourself? If not, that’s OK. You might have been a little ambitious or some factors might have changed. Now is the time to look at your business plan for 2014 and recalibrate based on the information you’ve gained over the past few months and where you are realistically on your time line.
A biggie is taking a good, hard look at your budget. Have you stayed in alignment with the budgetary limits that you set for yourself? If your latest marketing campaign is draining your bank, then you need to look at the impact it’s having so far and seeing if the cost is generating the kind of response that you’d need to justify it. Otherwise you need to be honest with yourself about trying something new. The worst thing is to throw good money after bad; take stock now before you find yourself out of your annual budget in June.
What about your staff? No, no, we’re not suggesting that you initiate a round of layoffs. But you should see if everyone is keeping up with their own set of responsibilities. Maybe some people need to shift their load onto their co-workers. Maybe some delegation or a change of titles is in order. How can you motivate your colleagues — who is really due for a promotion? How can you make sure that everyone is being heard and excited to bring their best to work every day?
Are you working with the best business partners for your business? Do you have the right investors and contractors who understand your mission statement? Especially when it comes to marketing, you have to guarantee that there is one single and clear message about your brand and corporate culture that everyone understands and presents to the world.
Most importantly, now is the time to sit down and make sure your team is on the same page about your plan for this year. Getting everyone in the same mental space with the same goals is the best kind of spring cleaning you can do for your business.
Check back for next week for even more Spring Cleaning Your Marketing tips.