12 steps to KickStart your marketing internally

by Taurus Marketing on September 6, 2011

The answers to most of your marketing challenges invariably lie in the information already tied up in your business.

To fast-track the marketing process, you need to get organised.

1. Knock the database into shape

Ensure details of your customers, prospects and influencers are captured in your database, ideally with a history of their relationship with you. Check the accuracy of your database by running monthly reports on the number of updates and ensure your team is aware of who is responsible for maintaining records.

2. Segment your customers

Divide your clients by industry sector, spend and length of service with you to give an ‘at-a-glance’ snapshot of the spread and depth of your customer profile.

3. Audit your brand

Collate all the existing collateral, eg brochures, fact sheets, stationary, presentations, newsletters etc in one place. Lay them out and ask whether the branding is consistent throughout. Do they look like they come from the same company? Are they inviting to read?

4. Check your sales material

Ask each member of your sales team for the presentations and script they use in their sales meetings. Ask them what’s working and what isn’t. What tools does your star sales performer use?

5. List the main sales objections

Ask each person involved in sales for the one single objection they encounter most often, then the next and so on, to gain your priority list of objections to address in your Public Relations, website and sales collateral.

6. Gather case studies and testimonials

Collate any existing client testimonials, congratulatory letters and emails into one document and file ready to review. Are your clients happy for you to use them in your marketing? They are really worth promoting.

7. Don’t reinvent the wheel

Analyse what’s worked and what hasn’t by collating all the previous marketing campaigns and their results. What was successful and what was not?

8. Start your own media list

List the publications your customers and staff read to start creating your media list. Have you ever spoken to a journalist? If so, add them to your list as well, preferably with notes on the experience you had and any coverage you achieved.

9. Shout your achievements

List your company’s professional memberships, accreditations, affiliations and awards and promote them. Are there any memberships you don’t have but perhaps ought to? Are there any awards you could enter?

10. Review presence at expos and events

Identify the expos and events you have exhibited or sponsored in the past and ask around about the results you gained. Make a list of those you ‘must attend’ and those you ‘would like to attend’ over the next 12 months.

11. Research Competitors

Start files on your top 5 competitors. Collect their brochures, news coverage, web addresses and download their newsletters. Get to know them. What are they offering that’s different to you? How are they promoting that difference?

12. Put marketing on the agenda

Put marketing on the agenda of team meetings. It should be a topic that is discussed at least monthly. Your team’s buy-in towards new marketing initiatives will multiply the success rate of your marketing.

“The mentoring we received from Taurus meant our own internal marketing skills soared.”
James Elkington, Managing Director, Esker Software