| | Are you a Street Fighter Marketer? | |
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A Marketing Audit Can Give You The
Info
By Jeff Slutsky and Marc Slutsky
Companies routinely have audits conducted to
insure that their financial books are in order.
Likewise, a marketing audit can help you
determine if you are getting what you expect
from your investment in time and money from your
marketing budget. To conduct your marketing
audit, follow the following steps:
- Determine - You need to decide what elements
of your marketing needs improving. These
elements can include: media advertising, direct
mail, sales, promotion, public
relations/publicity, telemarketing, website,
merchandising, contests, etc.
- Evaluate - Once you determine the elements of
your marketing program which need improvement,
interview several outside experts to conduct
your audit. For example, if you want to
determine the effectiveness of your advertising
agency or PR Firm, hire an outside advertising
executive. This needs to be someone who has no
vested interest in the recommendations he or she
makes.
- Budget - Create a budget for this project to
keep spending in check. Look at this audit as an
investment that reaps rewards in the near and
distant future.
- Interview - When deciding who you want to do
your audit, interview several candidates. Your
decision on who you hire should not be sorely
decided by price. Remember, you usually get what
you pay for.
- Use An Outside Expert - When you do interview
candidates, make sure they are experts in their
field. You are looking for advice from someone
who has been there and knows how to make your
business better. You need to feel comfortable
with the expert since they will be taking a
close and revealing look at your business.
- Follow Though - When the experts offers their
suggestions realize they are doing this not to
make friends, but to improve your business.
Don=t take it personally, but consider their
recommendations seriously and implement them if
they make sense for you.
- Recommendations - When suggestions are made
for improvement, make sure that the potential
improvement can be measured to prove success or
failure. Without accountability you’ll never
know for sure if you’re on the right track.
Recently we conducted such an audit for a client
that felt they weren’t getting the return on
their investment specifically in the area of
Local Store Marketing. We were not part of their
organization and have written several books on
the exact subject, and were the likely choice to
conduct such an audit. Our marketing
investigation revealed that they were asking
their managers to do extra community marketing
activities without providing them the training
or the incentive to do so. Once this was
corrected they immediately saw an increase in
their community marketing efforts.
Do you have a specific question about how to
initiate your own marketing audit? E-mail it to
marc@streetfightermarketing.com.
Street Fighter Action Plan
- Determine what areas of your marketing would
benefit from a marketing audit.
- Set up a budget by talking with several
experts to determine a fair rate.
- Interview a few experts to find the best
possible one. Find an expert you feel
comfortable with.
- Evaluate all recommendations and follow
through on those suggestions you like.
- If you like what the audit brought to your
business, consider a repeat a few years down the
road, just to keep your business up to date.
| Street Fighter Marketing, Inc. |
467 Waterbury Court, Gahanna OH 43230
Phone: 614/337-7474 Fax: 614/337-2233
Questions? 1-800-SLUTSKY (758-8759) |
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| Featured Product |
Success Stories
A major fast food chain suffered declining same store sales due
to
intrusion by two major competitors opening in the market for the first
time. Sales declined 23 percent. Street Fighter was brought in to develop
and implement a “quick deployment” plan-of-attack. Store-level
management and trained managers and franchisees learned to promote
their locations via a number of community opportunities, at very
low
cost. Over a period of 90 days, the stores rebounded with a 22 percent sales
increase. ________________________ ________________________
Paid media no longer produced the same return on investment that it
did in the recent past for a nationally-recognized franchise company.
Street Fighter Marketing developed local marketing tactics and
implemented them in four pilot market areas, resulting in a 40 percent
increase of customers tracked to LSM and Street Fighter Methods
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