Every now and then it’s important to step back from what you’re doing in your business and see what’s working and what’s not.
COVID-19 brought about challenges for most businesses and many have been forced to make changes as a result. If any of the following are relevant to you and your business right now, then this is as good a time as any to put your business through a marketing MOT.
- Your market place has changed - perhaps you’ve had to move from face to face to online selling?
- You’ve had to review/revise your product or service offering.
- Your target market has changed, you haven’t got enough customers or enough of the right ones.
- Turnover is down, you need to improve your cashflow.
- Having been forced into making rapid changes, you are currently operating without a clear plan or strategy.
- Feeling uncertain about the future and therefore unsure as to where is best to invest your time, money and energy.
When our marketplace changes there are tools we can use to help us look at what is around us that is affecting our business and which of those we can and can’t influence. Our Marketing MOT programme will help you work through these, applying them to your own business. Looking at where you are now is a good starting point and this is covered in step 2 of the programme.
Another reason to review your marketing is that resources are always finite, whatever the size of your business and not knowing what to invest in is a big challenge. By resources I mean money, time, people, materials and equipment. Many businesses just find they don’t have the time for marketing or the right skills and experience in-house for the job. Money is often in short supply and therefore we hold back from spending on marketing even though that probably stops us growing our business in the way we want to.
Over the course of this 5-part series we are going to look at:
- Where you are now
- Identifying your ideal client/target market
- Where you want your business to be
- How you are going to achieve your goals and objectives
The result will be a strategy and a plan to take your business forward through and beyond the pandemic.
Before we start to look forward, however, it’s always a good idea to reflect a little and take a look back.
- What marketing activities have you undertaken over the last 6 months - business development, sales campaigns, social media, content marketing, networking, etc.?
- What worked for you? Where did your referrals and customers come from? What helped raise your profile or increase sales?
- Which of those activities do you want to continue and which do you want to stop?
You can download our Marketing MOT e-book here and access the first of our accompanying videos here.
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