It’s so easy to get caught up in our day-to-day tactical work that we neglect to stop and take a good aerial view of our marketing efforts from thirty thousand feet.
The following are just a few of the basic questions we feel you should ask yourself before moving forward with a marketing check-up:
What’s your Brand of Distinction?
A brand is a promise to your customers; whether or not your marketing contributes toward a brand image in the marketplace. The goal is to control and guide that image into what we call a Brand of Distinction. What is it about your company that is unique only to you? If you have not gone through an exercise to determine your Brand of Distinction, this may be a good time.
Is everyone on the same page?
If someone were to ask the key people in your company, “why should I do business with you versus your competitors,” would everyone answer the same way? And could they answer in less than ten seconds? If you are not on the same page internally, how can you expect to effectively communicate to your marketplace?
Has your positioning strategy changed?
What is your positioning strategy? Has it changed, even slightly, over the past year? And how does your positioning strategy compare to those of your main competitors? If you haven’t already done so, create a grid of your main competitors. Where does each of them fall within that grid? This is a great reality check of where your marketplace is and where it may be heading.
Any new competitors or old competitors doing things differently?
Don’t take any one of your competitors for granted. If you have any new competitors, make sure you know everything about them. And be sure that you always monitor your existing competitors to avoid strategic surprises. The more you know about the choices your customers and prospects have, the better you can sell them your products and services.
These are just a few of the most critical touch-points we feel that every marketer should review each year as part of a marketing check-up. There are many more. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day frenzy, but take the time to look at the big picture and make sure that all is still on track.
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Gumas wrote the book on Challenger Brand Marketing. This has been an excerpt from Marketing Smart. A collective of proven marketing strategies and tips to help Challenger Brands take on their larger competitors…and win! Download an E-book version of the Marketing Smart for free here.
