Have you looked under your refrigerator lately? If not, there are probably fuzzy balls of dust collected under there. Where do these little dirt devils come from? I am told they are mainly comprised of old skin and hair. In other words, they are parts of you that have flaked off, fallen to the floor and gathered under your refrigerator. Why don’t we clean them out? They are hard to get to and, until something rolls under the refrigerator you want back or you need to move it for one reason or another, they remain unseen. However, when they do make themselves known, how utterly gross!

Let me explain that there are parts of marketing that are like those little grimy filth balls. Everybody wants to ignore them and pretend they aren’t there. However, the truth is, if you deal with these things on a regular basis, they don’t turn into fuzz ball creatures lurking in a dark place for you. What is the marketing dust under the refrigerator?

Strategic marketing plans

Creating a comprehensive marketing plan deals with several components: an understanding of your target market, listening to your customers, analyzing your brand, comparing it to your competition, determining where you have strengths where you could beat the competition and weaknesses where they could walk all over you. That takes a lot of time and thinking. It is one of the most effective tools you can have in your marketing arsenal, but is often passed over because it takes time to develop it. If you want to stop guessing at marketing, you need a plan to help you make informed decisions. A strategic marketing plan does just that. Don’t let the hard work of putting it together stop you from doing it. It will make your marketing so much more effective.

Analyzing your success

There are many ways you can analyze your marketing efforts, especially those which are electronic. However, most analytics are ignored. Why? Because there is just so much information it is overwhelming. Sir Isaac Newton’s third law states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That is true of marketing as well and you don’t have to be a physics genius to know it. If you put marketing into motion, it is designed to get a reaction from the people you are targeting – or if it didn’t get the reaction you wanted, you can determine that you didn’t have the forward movement you needed from your marketing efforts. You will never know if you are being effective unless you measure the response. Here is a way to read your analytics that should help you. Instead of getting bogged down in all the data, pick out a goal and one measurement metric. Focus on that. For instance, if I want my target market to become aware of a new brand product, I might set a goal of getting 10,000 people to view an ad that promotes it. Let’s say I then created an ad that ran on three formats: social media, search engine pay-per-click ads and with an e-blast. All of these came with links to a landing page on my website. I would have the ability to measure the activity on all three formats and would also have the website statistics to determine whether or not I was meeting my goal. Not only so, but I could determine which format worked the best for my target market. Don’t let all the data scare you from measuring your success and failure.

Try something new

Even the best marketing can become stale after awhile. Everything has its shelf life. It is easy to keep doing the same thing you have always done in marketing and become boring. Your customers stop listening to your marketing message because they have heard it all before. Try a new message every so often. Build this into your strategic marketing plan. You may also want to try a new medium as well. People’s interest in one medium over another changes rapidly these days. You see that often in social media’s many platforms. Make sure you are staying relevant by keeping track of the trending mediums within your target market.

Is it time for you to take a good look at your marketing efforts? Are you finding a lot of dirt balls under your refrigerator? If so, clean out the old and start with a good marketing plan. It will help you make wise decisions and put you on a path to more effective marketing.