Chapter 2

Start by Determining Your Current Business Health

Examining your company's present standing is the first step towards developing an effective marketing plan. In this section, you'll learn how to analyze your company and pinpoint its advantages, disadvantages, chances, and risks. Doing so will allow you to identify weak spots and plot out a course for development.

Using tools like the SWOT analysis, market research, and financial analysis, we'll examine how to determine the state of a company. We'll talk about the value of a well-thought-out strategy, the necessity of having clear objectives, and how to monitor your progress and make any adjustments.

You'll finish this chapter with a better grasp of the state of your company and a plan for where to go in your marketing from here. Let's jump right in and take a thorough look at the state of your company.

2.1 You Must Know Where Your Company Is Right Now

Knowing how things stand right now is essential for your company's long-term health. It's similar to getting a physical analysis to spot any health concerns before they worsen. You shouldn't ignore key indicators of problems in your company for the same reason that you shouldn't ignore disease symptoms in your body. To know where your company stands in the present business climate, you must look at everything from financial performance and customer happiness to market trends. Doing so will help you determine what's going well and where to adjust. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to craft a strategy for future expansion and achievement.

SWOT analysis is important for analyzing your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This strategy requires you to take stock of your company and catalog its strengths, shortcomings, possibilities for development and expansion, and dangers from the outside world.

In the area below let’s complete your first SWOT by writing down three answers for each area. After writing them down, I would encourage you to share your answers with your team and leaders, and also ask them to perform this exercise. Once you have a consensus on your SWOT, you will be well on your way to building solutions and marketing tools to leverage this simple but impactful business exercise. More to come on that later in this chapter.

An organization's well-being may be evaluated in several ways, and SWOT analysis is only one of them. In addition, you may receive client feedback and do market research to learn more about your target demographic and their specific wants and requirements.

Real-life example:

One of our long-time clients envisioned creating a health and lifestyle magazine, engaging the local medical community for contributions. The magazine aimed to reach the local patient population through mail, waiting rooms, and doctors’ offices. The doctor settled on two cover design ideas but was hesitant to make a final decision without strong feedback from his patients—the exact audience who would be the readers of the publication. Ingeniously, he decided to turn the final decision into a fun game and utilized his daily influx of over 100 patients to cast their votes. Displaying both cover designs in the lobby on large foam boards, patients were invited to vote on their preferred style. This collaborative approach swiftly determined the chosen cover design, leading to the successful launch of the magazine. The key takeaway is the invaluable insight gained from both internal and external perspectives when assessing your company or exploring new ideas.

2.2 A Company's Well-Being Affects Its Marketing Efforts

You must examine your company from every angle, including its finances, clientele, and public image. Examining your company's financials is the first step in determining its viability. These financial documents include your balance sheet, income, and cash flow statement. By digging into your financial documents, you may learn a lot about your company's income, costs, and margins. You can use this data to determine where you to save money and where to put in more effort.

BUSINESS TIP: If you are running paid advertising, take a hard look at ad waste or money spent that didn’t turn into leads. When our agency consults companies, who have experienced mixed results with paid advertising, the ad waste can be 15%-30% of their monthly budget. That is money going right down the toilet and can lead to frustration, lack of confidence, and cripple an outbound ad campaign.

Ask yourself this question: Do you have a total and clear understanding of how your marketing dollars are generating a return, and do you know what that return is per channel? The most popular ad channels are Google AdWords, Google Business Profile, YouTube, social media paid ads on Facebook and Instagram, and SEO (search engine optimization).

Another great question to ask yourself is this: Do I know the LTV (lifetime value) of my customer or patient? If you know what total investment a new customer brings to your business, this data should be used when you consider the “total acquisition cost” of a new customer, or what you spend to gain a new customer.

You should evaluate your clientele in addition to evaluating your financial condition. Researching your clientele's demographics, purchasing patterns, and opinions are essential. One way to improve your marketing efforts is to have a deeper familiarity with your target audience and how they use your products or services. You could devote additional resources to such efforts if your customers are also active on social media. Building out customer personas is a crucial step in easily identifying “who” makes up your buying audience.

Perception of the company's brand is also crucial to its success. To do this, you must know how your brand is received by different demographics, including consumers, industry insiders, and the general public. The best ways to do so are via surveys, internet reviews, and an examination of the competition. To improve your branding and marketing, having a feel for how people perceive your brand is important. After you have a firm grasp of the state of your company, you can utilize this knowledge to craft a strategic marketing initiative. Your SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), which you completed earlier in this chapter, should inform this strategy, and you should detail how you intend to deal with each of the four in turn. For instance, if your clientele is less varied than you'd like, you can increase your spending on demographically specific advertising.

In addition to developing a strategy for reaching your target audience, doing frequent company health checks will help you respond quickly to changing market circumstances. You can rapidly spot issues and make necessary improvements to your marketing plans by frequently keeping tabs on your finances, client base, and brand perception. I recommend having a strategy in place for quarterly health checks and reviewing your KPIs.

In conclusion, it is crucial to your marketing strategy to have a firm grasp on where your company is right now. Regular health checks on your company also help you remain flexible in the face of shifting market circumstances, which is important for maintaining the long-term success of your company and marketing initiatives. Taking stock of your company's well-being is essential before you can develop an effective marketing plan. By knowing what parts of your organization are doing well and what parts need work, you can better decide how to spend your time, money, and energy.

2.3 Finding Where Change Is Needed

First, you'll want to take stock of your company and note any weak spots. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including sales revenue, client acquisition costs, customer retention rates, and profit margins, may be examined to accomplish this. One way to assess your company's progress is to compare its current numbers to those from the past and those from similar businesses in the same sector.

Ask yourself these five simple and telling questions:

1. In what ways do you most often hear compliments and also criticism?

2. Can you name any perks or features that your rivals provide that you don't, and can you match or beat those perks?

3. What is the lifetime value of a new customer or patient?

4. What is your current new customer or patient acquisition cost?

5. Are we meeting our strategic objectives?

Responding to these concise yet crucial questions will offer profound insights and establish a robust foundation for strategically positioning your marketing and company in the future.

Take note of the knowledge and expertise within your team. Are all team members performing their roles effectively? Consider the potential for increased efficiency through new knowledge or tools. When was the last time you conducted a strengths and weaknesses analysis of your team? Do you hold quarterly staff review meetings? Analyzing the strengths and shortcomings of your team contributes to its development. As mentioned in Chapter 1, following the advice of my mentor to avoid "working on your weaknesses" is equally crucial for each team member. If your team focuses on leveraging their strengths, they will not only be effective but also content and more productive.

Learning Your Limitations and Assets

Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of your company is just as crucial as finding places where it may be improved. To stand out in a competitive market, you need to...