Before you hire another service provider or put more money into your website, ask yourself one question—How will I grow my business/association in 2013? What is your plan? What are your goals? You cannot expect a vendor or your employees to be successful with your online marketing programs if you have not clearly communicated to them how you spell success.
In example: This year I expect to grow my sales by 20% over last year. Okay, that is a tangible number. But are you going to do that in sales dollars or in customer numbers? Because on paper the difference between one and the other can be hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Even more, if you do not know where you have been, how can you expect to get somewhere? How will you achieve the sale increase from the goal you set. Do you believe your sales will come from past customers increasing their purchases or from new customers making a first purchase? What do those customers have in common? What measurement will you use to determine if your vendor or employee has reached that sales goal?
If you are like a lot of business owners or Associations, you have just taken a look at your last year’s cumulative numbers as you get them ready for your tax year 2012. You have seen sales but have you seen where they came from? If you have an Association did you see membership grow? Where is your next customer coming from? Since you are ready to evaluate your marketing plan and achieve more in 2013, here are some steps to take to get where you want to go:
1) I have put together a great worksheet for you to use to get the big picture you need on how to set and achieve your marketing goals for 2013. You may have a much more sophisticated spreadsheet that your company already uses. Still I would suggest that you simplify the numbers to my worksheet so you can see the birdseye view. This will also help you to simplify the goals to your staff.
2) Know your numbers. Before you get in the car, you typically know where you are leaving from (so you can get back there or have a reference for where you are going). It is the same for marketing. If you know your numbers (website visitors, facebook fans, linkedin network, twitter followers and email respondents) on a monthly and annual basis, you are more likely to achieve more and clearly communicate success to those working on your program. If you are not sure where to start on this, read my blog or attend my next “Is Your Social Media & Online Marketing Paying Off Laptop” Bootcamp to learn how to measure the important indicators yourself. There is one on 6/15 in Mission Viejo.
3) Don’t treat investments in Social Media and Online Marketing any different from traditional marketing. If you go to a show or spend money sending out a direct mail piece you need to include all the costs associated with the results to the cost of that medium. If you have a secretary or a cousin doing your social media or online advertising keywords, simply add up all their hours and multiply it by the cost of employing them and then compare it to the goals and results in order to see if it makes sense to hire someone else to do the job or if the person doing that job at your company is making progress. Do they need more time to do an even better job? You can’t direct it if you don’t know the facts.
4) Add networking to your growth plan. Keep in mind that with most companies, the growth takes place faster if the company has started strategic partnerships with others looking for the same target market. What are those relationships you can grow in 2013? What is your plan to spread the word about your social media, website, services and products with those partners?
5) How are you reaching potential and existing customers/donors/contacts 7-9 times in a reasonable period of time? We used to say that you needed to expose potential consumers to your message 3 times to overcome the hurdle of trust. Today that number is 7-9 times. So if you do a monthly newsletter only, that exposure will take you 7-9 months. That is too long, by the time they see you again, they will have forgotten you. Instead, make a calendar of how you are touching that potential and existing customer 7-9 times in the next two months. Integrate social & online media with your traditional media to achieve that goal.
If you need help determining where your company is at, I can help by providing you with a white paper on the positives and negatives of your online efforts. If you want to learn to measure those results yourself, register for my Analytics Workshop with SCORE on Saturday, 6/15 in Mission Viejo. If you cannot make that event, contact our office (310) 791-6300 and see what class or service we can provide in case we can set you up with a private or semi-private class to help you get on track for achieving and exceeding your 2013 marketing goals.
Liz Harsch, has been helping small and medium sized businesses make the most of their marketing investments since 1988. Her company, Tailor-Made Advertising is an Authorized SCORE workshop presenter and an awarded Constant Contact Email Marketer and Authorized Local Expert presenting Workshops for Constant Contact, SCORE, SBDC, Metropolitan Water District, multiple Chambers of Commerce, The City of Los Angeles and other Organizations. For more information about her company, visit tailormadeadvertsing.com. To schedule her as a speaker for your organization, association or department, send her an email at tmademkt@verizon.net.
