Sadly, roughly eight out of every ten new businesses (80%!) will face this reality and be out of business within 5 years.
The reasons why so many small businesses fail are many and varied. However, it is astonishing how many fail to appreciate the fact that no matter what type of business they might think they are in, they are actually in the business of marketing their business!
Truth be known, marketing is said to be responsible for 95% (or more) of the success of any business. In most every type of business competition, it is simply the best marketer who wins!
Developing the best products or services in your field is definately something to strive for. However, knowing how to get your phone ringing or create a lineup of customers at your door is absolutely vital!
Companies who appreciate this fact have the best chance of beating the odds to survive and prosper. While the hopes and dreams of most companies who don't, will be slowly crushed to death.
Therefore, right from the start, one of the most important tasks of any business is to identify what you're doing right, and what you could be doing better and more profitably.
And one of the best ways to accomplish this task is to periodically complete a thorough marketing audit.
While the following three-part questionaire offers an excellent place to start.
As you will see, Part One provides a more personal review of your business and marketing. Part Two provides more specific details about your business marketing. And Part Three provides a system to probe deeply into most any question or topic.
Overall, your answers will provide a valuable new business perspective and, chances are, more then a few surprises!
Note: To help you get the most out of this system, copy and paste each question and answer into a word document to review.
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Marketing Questionaire / Audit
Part One:
1. How did you get started in this business?
2. What do you enjoy most about it?
3. What separates you and your company from your competition?
4. What advice would you give someone just starting out in this business?
5. What one thing would you do with this business if you knew you could not fail?
6. What significant changes have you seen take place in this industry through the years?
7. What do you see as the coming trends in this business?
8. What was the strangest or funniest incident you've experienced in this business?
9. What ways have you found to be the most effective for promoting your business?
10. What one sentence would you like people to use in describing the way you do business?
Part Two
1. How long have you been running this business?
2. What product or service do you sell?
3. What are you really selling?
4. Do people buy this product or service more than once?
5. What is your average revenue per month?
6. What is the average size of each sale?
7. On average how long does a customer stay and do business with you?
8. What is your average gross profit per sale?
9. Do you have a unique sales proposition or message? If so, what is it?
10. Without checking, do you know where 80% of your revenue comes from? If so, what type of customer?
11. Who are you advertising or promoting to?
12. What does your product do for them?
13. Why is it superior to alternative products?
14. How can you prove your case?
15. Where should you advertise to reach your best prospects?
16. When is the best time to reach them?
17. How many active customers do you currently have?
18. How many inactive past customers do you have?
19. Do you ask for referrals? If so, when?
20. How often do you contact your customers? What type of information do you send? (newsletter, tip sheet, product update, other)
21. Is there always an offer or reason to contact you built into each communication that you send?
22. How many inquiries do you generate each month from these communications?
23. How many of these inquiries do you convert to sales?
24. What communications do most of these inquiries come from? (direct mail, referral, Yellow Pages, other)
25. How much do you spend (approx.) on this marketing to generate these inquiries each month?
26. Do you keep track of what marketing generates what inquiries? (i.e. Yellow Pages ad-20 leads, Referrals-12 leads, etc.)
27. Do you offer free information or check ups in relation to your product/service before a prospect has to commit to inquire with you directly? If so, what type?
28. How often do you contact previously non-converted prospect inquiries?
29. Is this communication programmed in to your business routine?
30. What is the biggest marketing problem that you would like to solve?
Part Three
Instructions to probe deeper into any particular question or topic:
A. Review your answer to a particular question from Part Two above.
B. Follow the 5W1H (Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How) question format to develop a new set of six questions to help you probe deeper into your answer to this question.
For example:
Question # 30. What is the biggest marketing problem you would like to solve?
Answer: We would like to reduce our newspaper advertising expeditures and generate more customer referrals
New 5W1H questions:
1. Who should we target to request new customer referrals?
2. What should we offer them as an incentive to send us referrals?
3. Where is the best place to reach them to promote this new offer?
4. Why should we reach them there?
5. When should we make this offer?
6. How many should we contact to test this new offer?
C. Repeat the process with your answer to another question from Part Two above, or to your answer to any one of new 5W1H questions from Part Three B directly above.
For example:
Question # 26. Do you keep track of what marketing generates what inquiries? (i.e. Yellow Pages ad-20 leads, Customer referrals-12 leads, etc.)
Answer: Yes
New 5W1H questions:
1. Who could we target to request more qualified referral leads from?
2. What kind of added benefit could we offer to increase referral leads?
3. Where do these referral leads come from now?
4. Why are we generating 20 Yellow page leads and only 12 referral leads a month?
5. When is the best time to contact new referral lead sources?
6. How should we contact these new referral lead sources?
Take-away points:
With practice you find this system will provide an exceptional way to help you to continually identify areas of marketing strength and weakness, what you are doing well, and more specifically what you could be doing better.
Additional resources:
How do you and your business stack up? If you are up for a rather mind-numbing, yet highly revealing session, take this 87 question self-diagnostic assessment test by marketing wizard Jay Abraham:
Click here
