This afternoon, when the day starts to slow down about 3 pm, grab your marketing materials and take an quick inventory of your tools:
- brochures
- power point presentation
- business cards
- letterhead/envelopes
- flyers, rack cards
- pocket folder
- direct mail follow up letter template
- holiday “thank you” letter
- postcards
- articles, press clippings
- press releases
- promo ad specialty give aways (pads of paper with your logo, pens, magnets, mugs)
- print out the 3 most popular entry pages on your website
- print out the 3 most popular PDF downloads from your website
- ads from the trade journals
- last few newsletters
- video/dvd
- tradeshow booth (You don’t have to set it up! Find just the posters or pictures of it set up.)
Spread your marketing materials on your conference table. These are your tools for your marketing program. Does one item stand out like a sore thumb? Are all the materials consistent, similar quality, type/logo match? Do they represent your brand? Does the group give you the “WOW” feeling?
Is there someone from the sales department handy? Grab them. Ask the sales person which ones represent the current business the best? Which ones are the strongest tools?
Put a yellow stickie on the 3 worst items. Can you eliminate them and do without them at all? Or do you need to refresh them? Or do you have to rebrand them completely?
Are all the items impressive… or are they mismatched?
Do you know which is your strongest tool at attracting leads? Converting leads? Getting used by the sales people? Representing your company’s branding? Which are the weakest? Why? What works? What doesn’t?
Try to do this fast. Be done by 4 pm. Have a mini plan of attack for 2nd quarter, especially if you have a trade show coming up, or your best sell through time is 4th quarter. Get your mini plan in place now (use yellow stickies.)
Take a look at the budget – you should have 1st quarters numbers by now and the projections for second quarter. Can you afford to take the worst item and put some time, effort and dollars into upgrading it? Can you afford NOT to invest in your marketing?
