3 Steps To a Better Year With a Simple Marketing Performance Evaluation | Ep 36

Resources

30, 60, 90-day Marketing Plan Template 

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Podcast Transcript: Marketing Performance Evaluation

Did you have great intentions like me, to start off 2022 with a bang, with everything figured-out in terms of planning, staffing, marketing, and launching new products or services? And instead, nothing so far has gone to plan.

Well, as far as I’m concerned it’s time for a do-over. It might be late February but let’s start the year again and do it right. To help you get moving towards having your best year ever, let’s talk about the three things that can help you get your marketing moving in the right direction.

Hello and welcome to Season 2 of the SSOM podcast. It’s so good to finally be back on the airwaves.

I was planning on recording new episodes last month but life felt like I was clinging onto the back of a speed boat in shark-infested waters, and the best thing to do was to hold on for dear life until I could come back up for air.

Well, my kids have finally gone back to school which has taken a bit of pressure off. I know many of you still have kids home which is challenging to say the least, especially when you’re also running a business.

I think the thing that’s kept me on track and heading in the right direction over the last two years is strategy and planning. When everything is constantly changing and seriously affecting how we work and live, I’ve become very strategic in everything I do and it really has made the biggest difference to not just my growth but also my stress levels. 

To me, it’s about knowing the specifics of my goals. Knowing exactly what I want to achieve and the things that’ll provide the biggest impacts on getting me there. It’s about running my own race and doing it courageously.

I used to worry about not having the time to do all the things I should or could be doing. To create more videos and social media posts. To spend more time on SEO and ads. But to achieve my current goals, our time is better spent elsewhere right now. It doesn’t mean these things aren’t important. It just means they’re not a priority right now.

Everything we do costs us time and money, even if you do it all yourself. So let’s get you set up for a great year ahead in your business.

The first thing you need to do, if you haven’t already, is to sit down and review your last 12 months in business. It’s something that I used to skip over because I didn’t see the value in it but over the last 5 years I’ve found that what I get out of it is incredibly valuable to my growth as a person and as a business owner.

But knowing the right questions to ask makes all the difference. So ask yourself…

• What went well? 
• What went wrong? and what did you learn from it?
• What were the biggest challenges that got in your way?
• What did your customers say? – the good and the bad.
• And what can you change?

You’re possibly thinking I don’t have time for this and what’s the point. Well, the point is so that you can learn from your successes and failures. It’s also because most of us rarely take the time to celebrate another year in business. We’re happy to wallow in the bad times but need to remember the progress we make to keep us going.

And as for not having time – there’s nothing wrong with sitting down with a glass of wine on a Sunday afternoon and spending an hour or so reviewing your year. It works for me. I usually find I’m so busy during the week and my head is full of everything that needs to be done, so Sunday afternoon or even early morning during the week before anyone else is out of bed are my best thinking times. Set aside an hour or so, and that’s your review done.    l

The next thing you need to do is to get intentional. If you want to increase your income and impact then your success is up to you. So many of us get caught up in working in our businesses that we lose track of what we need to be doing to grow our business. But I think a lot of the time we put way too much in the too-hard basket or the I’ll do it later pile. Everyone has those piles! So let’s make it easier to achieve the results we want. 

When it comes to your marketing, rather than going, I need to increase engagement on Instagram and send more regular emails to my email list, – you need to start from the other end. What are your goals? Think about what do you want to achieve in the next 90 days, 12 months or 5 years? 

Maybe your goal is to improve retention rates by 25%. Knowing this will allow you to work out what the increase in income will be, by when and, what resources you can put towards making it happen.  

Knowing your end goal makes it’s so much easier to work out what marketing and communication you should be doing to get you those results. Instead of spending more time on social media, you’d be better off improving your onboarding communication and processes, plus looking at things like your email marketing, customer service and incentives.

I find that so much time and money is wasted on marketing every day around the world. It’s wasted because it doesn’t help you reach your goals. It might make a business LOOK like they’re popular or professional but how many websites, advertisements and, social media pages are out there for businesses that aren’t making a profit? 

Considering the high failure rate of small businesses around the world, which is around 50% closing in the first five years in countries like the US and Australia, the priority should be on spending on marketing that will build your foundations and get you the results you are aiming for. Leave someone else to win the popularity contest.

So now it’s your turn to get intentional. What are your goals and what date will you achieve them by? Write them down on a piece of paper and stick them on your wall where you’ll see them every day. You can do it in black marker pen or make it as pretty as you’d like, as long as you do it.

Okay so onto our third must-do to set you up for the year ahead… Decide on what marketing activities you need to concentrate on to reach your goals. Those that will create the biggest impact. 

Think about it this way… If you want to get 5 new clients by 30 March, what are the most important things you can do that will help you reach that goal? Do you need to create an offer, phone 10 prospective clients, then send them an email follow-up.

If you were trying to build your email list it could be that you decide to run a Facebook ad that sends them to a downloadable checklist, a discount voucher, or something of value which they have to give you their email address to get. So you need a simple landing page on your website where they sign up and connect it to your email marketing which automatically sends out a series of emails that you’ve written.

If you wanted to increase bookings during the quiet period, you could create a great new offer that has a deadline, with a new sales page or discount code. You’d email your customers with the offer plus have some follow-up emails to go with it.

Now the simplest way to do this which leads to a higher likelihood that you’ll succeed is to concentrate on reaching 90 day goals rather than giving yourself a whole heap of actions to achieve over 12 months. 

Because let’s be realistic. How often do you find you get to the end of the year and realise you only achieved half of what you set out to do, which is a huge wasted opportunity. I’m certainly guilty of doing that in the past and doing things in 90-day chunks has a much higher success rate. 

And make sure you stick to the activities that will help you reach goals faster and with bigger impact and you’re going to make progress. There are plenty of things you can be doing, but prioritising and keeping the finish line in sight are key.

Nothing will change if you’re not intentional. If you don’t sit down and plan, you won’t know if you’re concentrating on the wrong marketing activities or you’re missing out on opportunities that could drive your growth.

Your 3 must-do actions for this month are to review the last 12 months to see what lessons you can learn from the successes, failures and challenges. Remember it doesn’t have to take long. All you need is a pen and paper, or your computer, and the right questions (I’ve written down on our website for this episode).

Then you need to be intentional and decide what specific goals you want to achieve in your business and by when. Again, write it down. And lastly, work out what actions you need to take to reach those goals and add them to your 90 day plan. 

To help you even more, we’re giving listeners free access to our free 90-Day Marketing Plan Template.

You’ll find all of the resources including a link to the 90 day marketing plan in the show notes of this episode. Go and have a great restart to your year and start making your marketing simpler and way more effective.

I can’t wait to see you back here for the next episode. I’ve got some amazing interviews lined up plus some more tips and tricks of my own to share with you. 

Thanks so much for listening. If you love what you’ve just heard, please share this podcast with your friends, family, and colleagues. 

 The Simply Standout Marketing Podcast is designed to help small business owners and entrepreneurs stand out and grow their businesses. Because growing their business will change their life.