Marketing is always looking in two different directions at the same time: forwards and backwards. This is not the result of some sort of lack-of-focus disorder on the part of marketers. It is a very healthy thing to do in your business. The backwards glance to measure how you are doing and the forward strain to plan for the future. There are two numbers you should remember here: 3 and 6. What just happened in the past three months and what needs to happen in the next six?

Looking back at three

The first quarter of the year is days away from being history. How are your business sales so far? How successful have you been at marketing your brand to get your target market to buy from you? If you have a relatively short sales cycle, your sales may be on pace. If you have a longer sales cycle, where customers take a while to say yes to a sale, you may want to take some other measurements besides sales. For instance, how engaged are your prospects with your brand? How are they reacting to your marketing efforts? Are they aware of your brand and all the aspects of it? Has your awareness marketing led them to a point of asking sales related questions, such as inquiring about price and delivery times? Is your marketing giving good answers to any objections they might have? Now is the time to make adjustments to your marketing based on what you are finding out from your customers in the first quarter. Evaluate where you are in the first three months of the year. You should make looking back three months a regular practice you do at the end of each quarter.

Looking ahead six

Marketing works best when it is planning for what is going to happen six months from now. What opportunities do you have for marketing in the fall? For many industries, this is convention and trade show season. What are you doing to plan for those events – and even more – what are you doing that will set you apart from your competition at those venues? This is where the lessons learned from your three month backward glances will pay off. Use them to make adjustments to your marketing in the next six months.

If you use the three and six evaluation formula throughout the year, you will find a rhythm to your marketing that becomes very easy to measure and to adjust as you go. It will also make it much easier to build both a strategy and a budget for the upcoming year. It is both methodical and fluid.