I have a nickname – The Annoying Marketeer.
Why? Because I ask so many questions of my SME clients in order to build solid marketing foundations.
Why? Because marketing is the lifeblood of any business and I want to help them build the business they desire. And building solid foundations now will enable you to reap significant rewards in the future.
I’m more than happy with this nickname by the way as it means I’m doing my job.
The first set of questions I ask my clients are all based around identifying objectives.
It may look like a simple task on the face of it but there is so much involved!
And your objectives need to be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound. Why? So that everyone in your business can see what is being worked towards and by measuring and reporting on progress you can demonstrate achievement.
So in the spirit of helping you to identify your objectives, here’s the first set of questions you need to ask yourself:
💡 What was your turnover last year?
💡 What are your revenue projections for the next two years?
💡 How does your revenue breakdown from existing and new customers?
💡 How does this breakdown in revenue between your products and services?
Why are we interested in revenue from existing customers? Well because our strategic approach places as much importance on increasing transaction value and frequency of spend with existing customers as acquiring new – something that we call 3D Sustainability & Growth.
This approach will significantly support not only growth but the development of a sustainable business with a loyal customer base. And this is something that we strongly advocate all our clients should embrace.
So we’ve looked at revenue and how this breaks down. The next set of questions follow on from this and are all about gaining insight into lead generation.
🚀 What is the average sales value per customer?
🚀 How many leads do we need to generate to achieve our forecast revenue?
🚀 Do we have the resources in place to engage these leads?
🚀 Are the sales team happy with the current quality of the leads?
These questions will give you solid figures as to how many leads you need to generate to achieve your targets and an indication of whether you are ‘fishing in the right ponds’.
The next set of questions are all about the main components of your business strategy for next year in order to achieve what you need to.
🦋 How do we plan to grow and what are the main areas of focus?
🦋 Do we have any new products or services planned?
🦋 Do we have any product or service enhancements planned?
🦋 Any new initiatives?
🦋 Can these be broken down into 90 day plans?
By answering these questions you will have a clearer focus on how you can achieve your revenue projections.
There are literally hundreds of questions to ask around the topic of objectives but these are just a few that should, if nothing else, be thought provoking and at best help you identify some SMART objectives for your business.
And this is the first part of building solid marketing foundations not only for today but also tomorrow.