Has your advertising manager made the statement: “I know half my marketing dollars are wasted...I just don’t know which half”? Did you fire that employee or vendor on the spot? You should have.
Advertising and marketing have often acted like they have an open checkbook and without any supervision. Advertising and marketing can move mountains, but it requires planning that can be executed by the marketing department.
You and your executives have crafted strategy and vision for your organization but you rely on your management team to integrate departmental plans to achieve your corporate objectives. Planning is critical to reach your marketing goals; not that the resulting plan is critical, rather the process of planning is critical.
Managers must think about what has happened, what is happening and what might happen. Goals must be set and agreement achieved. The goals must be communicated to the entire organization. Progress towards goals must be measured. Corrective action must be taken overcome obstacles when goals are missed.
Marketing departments and vendors often circumvent the planning process by preparing high level marketing plans; but marketing is more complicated and important than “Cliffs Note” marketing plan which focus upon short-term goals and lacks marketing specifics.
Advertising expense should be viewed as an investment. Gone are the internet bubble companies whose only value was generated by their Super Bowl commercials: Do you remember Pets.Com? Advertising takes multiple exposures and meaningful messages to generate viewer recall. Overtime, advertising impacts the market landscape and is more powerful and cheaper than direct sales.
Marketing plans should be simple and easy to use. The best plans are brief and provide goals, strategy and plan costs. The basic templates for marketing plans contain:
- Situational Analysis
- Marketing Objectives and goals
- Marketing strategy
- Marketing action plan
- Marketing controls
Checklist for Performing Strength - Weakness Analysis
Objectives and Goals:
Advertising objectives and goals are critical to measuring your marketing investment. Executives and marketing managers need to understand what the company’s target is and advertising’s role. Objectives are broad and focused on the current period and long term objectives. Objectives are increase margin, customer satisfaction, company’s value, etc. The objectives must be feasible and internally compatible.
The critical factor separating success companies from mediocre companies are goals. It is critical that management have tools to gauge exactly how marketing/advertising is performing. Goals are measurable and hold advertising accountable. When executives start measuring advertising, you hear comments such as “I know half my marketing dollars are wasted…” Commissions are earned based upon measurable sales….
Strategy:
The company now has to determine the best path to achieve its marketing/advertising goals and this is accomplished through strategy. The components for marketing strategy are:
- Defining the Target Market Company’s Core Positioning
- Price Positioning
- Company’s Value Proposition
- Distribution Strategy
- Communication Strategy
Action Plan:
Now comes the hard part; the company must translate the goals and strategies into concrete actions which requires actual work to occur. All the talking now stops and work must be performed to implement the actions. Action plans not only have dates and activity for launching new programs; it also includes monitoring performance and communicating results to key players.
Control:
The company has invested in marketing and expects to achieve results. The plan must include a mechanism for reviewing and assess performance. Last month, I presented a Marketing Scorecard model and this could be the tool your company uses to control your marketing investment. Remember, management must take corrective action when goals are not met.
Your senior management team has reviewed and approved lots of plans, but how can you be sure that your marketing plan contains good marketing principles. It takes real marketing experts help establish a common planning framework. CMG~SRG is an organization that can help. Our marketing team contains experts and we can help identify and leverage the 50% of wasted advertising dollars.
Remember, http://www.yoursrg.com/ promotes living communities via our Display Pages. Yoursrg.com attracts over 500,000 visitors each month and these are visitors who are looking for senior living solutions. The following link takes you to an Omaha display page example(http://yoursrg.com/listing/43119/Arboretum-On-Farnam-Drive.aspx).
Hurry to take advantage of our $25.00 Display Page promotion!
Thank you for your time and contact me with any questions.
Tom Chappelear
CMG~SRG
mailto:Tom.chappelear@cmginc.com?subject=Marketing
402-292-1135
No comments:
Post a Comment