Find the gaps in your marketing strategy
A busy marketing calendar can conceal an unresolved commercial question. The business may be reaching the wrong people, making an unclear offer or losing suitable enquiries after they arrive. Review the path from customer need to paid work before deciding that the answer is more marketing activity.
Editorial responsibility: Nardus Oelofse, Chief Consultant.
By Chase & Marshal
Start with the customers you want to win
Describe the customers and buying situations the business is prioritising. Include the problem they need to solve, what makes the work commercially attractive and the conditions that make the relationship a good fit. Broad labels such as business owners may not be enough to guide a campaign.
Compare that intended audience with recent enquiries and customers. Look at which work converts, which relationships are valuable and where the team spends effort on poor-fit opportunities. This gives the strategy review a commercial starting point.
Test the offer and its evidence
Ask whether a prospective customer can understand what you will help them achieve, what the work involves and why your business is credible. Review the website, proposals and sales conversations together. Contradictory descriptions can create uncertainty at the point of decision.
In an illustrative specialist firm, the website may promote a wide range of capabilities while successful sales conversations focus on one urgent operational problem. That gap suggests an opportunity to make the buying situation and service more specific in public communications.
Follow the route from attention to enquiry
Examine where suitable customers encounter the business and what they need next. A channel can attract attention without supporting a useful buying journey. Check the message, destination page, evidence and next step as a connected sequence.
Then inspect the handover to sales. Establish what makes an enquiry qualified, who follows up and how the outcome is recorded. Marketing cannot learn reliably from lead volume if the business loses sight of which enquiries become worthwhile work.
Choose the highest-value correction
Summarise the gaps and the evidence behind them. Distinguish an unclear strategic choice from a delivery problem. A poorly targeted offer needs a different response from a strong offer that lacks campaign execution or consistent follow-up.
Choose one or two changes with a clear owner and a useful measure. That could involve narrowing an audience, strengthening proof, rebuilding a service page or improving the sales handover. A good strategy review creates decisions the team can act on and explains why those decisions deserve priority.
Questions answered
Can we assess the strategy without perfect data?
Use the evidence you have, including enquiry records, sales discussions and customer feedback. Identify uncertainty openly and gather the missing information that would change the next decision.
Related
Sources
Sources supporting the factual statements in this article. Findings should be read within their stated dates, geography and scope.
- Marketing strategy - Business.govt.nz. www.business.govt.nz. Publication date not supplied.
Identify the marketing decision to make next
Bring your current plan, website or recent enquiry pattern. We can help identify the strategic gap and organise a practical response tied to the work you want to win.
