In order to make your company, its services and products, more valuable a business must identify their customers, locate them, then show them how they stand out from the crowd – and nothing is more crowded than today’s marketplace.

Businesses that align their messaging with the marketplace increase their value and market position. That’s why it is imperative to always start a project by conducting a brand audit and developing a strategic plan, which is the backbone of any marketing initiative.

Establishing an effective marketing strategy with materials that are focused and produce results is a process. This process is imperative, as it creates a solid foundation off of which the business can be built and growth can be measured.

This process gets results — high-caliber results that come from focusing on strategy, opportunity and foresight. One-off designs and emergency campaigns leave businesses spinning their wheels while money goes out the door and produce no measurable results. Building and sustaining a strong brand can only be done with a true understanding of your brand and how to manage it.

What is a brand audit?

A brand audit is an in depth examination of a brand’s current position in an industry and a measure of its effectiveness.

The following questions are typically addressed in the brand audit process:

• How well is the business’ current brand strategy working?
• What are the business’ established resource strengths?
• What weaknesses does the business struggle with?
•  What are its external opportunities?
• What external forces threaten the business?
• How competitive are the business’ prices and costs?
• How strong is the business’ competitive position in comparison to its competitors?
•  What strategic issues is the business facing?

The main goal of a brand audit is to uncover a business’ resource strengths, deficiencies, best market opportunities, outside threats, future profitability, and standing in comparison to existing competitors.  A brand audit identifies the strategic elements needed to improve brand position and competitive capabilities within the industry.  Once a brand is audited, any business has a benchmark with which to measure financial performance and market position, and is more likely to have a properly conceived and effectively executed brand strategy.

What is does a brand audit do for a business?

A brand audit examines whether a business’ share of the market is increasing, decreasing, or remaining consistent.  It determines if the company’s margin of profit is changing, and how it compares to the profit margin of established competitors.  Additionally, a brand audit investigates trends in a business’ profits, the return on investments, and its established economic value.  It determines whether or not the business’ entire financial strength is improving or getting worse.  This kind of audit also compares a business’ image and reputation with its customers.  A brand audit seeks to determine whether or not a business is perceived as an industry leader in technology, offers product or service innovations, delivers excellent customer service, among other relevant issues that customers use to decide on when selecting a company to do business with.

A brand audit usually focuses on a business’ strengths and resource capabilities because these are the elements that set it apart from the competition.  Competitive strengths include skills or expertise in the industry, valuable physical assets, valuable human assets, valuable organizational assets, intellectual property, competitive capabilities, achievements and attributes that position the business into a competitive advantage, and alliances or cooperative ventures.

A brand audit seeks to ensure that a business maintains a distinctive competence that allows it to build and reinforce its competitive edge.

What is involved in the brand audit process?

The brand audit process involves us going into your office and conducting a series of interviews with executives and personnel. During these interviews we ask specific questions that are designed to identify the business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and competitive advantages. We also conduct extensive industry research to determine industry trends and help establish a business’ position in relation to their competitors. The audit also involves evaluating a business’ marketing strategy and budget, branding standards and marketing materials. Furthermore, an external audit may involve interviewing a business’ customers for feedback on products and services.

So you’ve got a great product or a fabulous service and you are ready to announce it to the world. Your goal is to develop a solid marketing plan that gives you the most for your money. How can you make sure your marketing budget will maximize your return on investment?

It often helps you know what to do when you know what not to do. While developing your marketing strategy, you should keep the following nine marketing mistakes in mind:

1. Wasting Money

Money is a valuable asset! Don’t get caught up jumping from opportunity to opportunity or buying everything that lands in your inbox. Think twice before making major purchases and make sure your marketing strategy is in place before spending money on advertising.

Marketing, PR and advertising dollars are a valuable commodity, so it’s important to come up with smart ways to spend your money wisely. You can’t spend all of your time at the drawing board, however. There comes a time when you simply have to take a leap of faith and roll out the campaign. You’re not going to sell anything through a campaign that never deploys, or a website that never launches. Be smart, do your homework, but be proactive. Be careful not to fall in love with your ideas, either. If customers are not buying your products or calling for your services your campaign is not successful, no matter how nice it looks or creative it is. If you don’t have a ready system in place to track sales and campaign success, you are not going to know if the money was wasted or not. It’s important to track it, and track it constantly.

2. Not Spending Enough

The cliché is true: you have to spend money to make money. If you try to take the cheap route to save a dime, it will show and your potential clients will know it, even if they don’t say anything to you. The fact is that people do judge a book by its cover. If you are lacking a consistent brand identity or distributing material that is not professional quality, your image will suffer. If you are holding back and not marketing enough, you will lose valuable opportunities, also.

3. Focusing on the Wrong Markets

The first step in any marketing plan is to determine who you are marketing to. If you market to an audience who doesn’t have a need for your product or service, then your campaign is not going to work no matter how clever it is. Do your research and make sure you are sending your message to the right people. If you are dead set on conquering a certain market you could end up on a long and expensive journey that is doomed to failure. A “niche” market is a good find but only if this they will spend money!

4. Believing Change is Always Good

When it comes to successful marketing, customers remember consistency. If you keep changing the message, or your visuals are not consistent, you may confuse your customers. Confused customers don’t buy products or services: they move on to something they understand. So resist the temptation to change your marketing messages, or to use a variety of designers because you are price shopping. Everything the customer sees should be consistent with message and imagery. Measure what is working and do more of that. Only change strategy when things are not working and you know WHY they are not working. Is it the message? Is it the target? Is it the appearance? It’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel to come up with a successful marketing plan or marketing materials- in fact, it’s sometimes detrimental. It is okay to freshen up your look or launch a new campaign every so often, but keep it familiar to your clients so they still recognize you.

5. Resisting Change

There are those that miss out on opportunities because they don’t keep up with the times. This is especially true when it comes to websites. Many companies believe that the website that they have from a few years ago is fine and they don’t believe they have any reason to change it. Sadly, they are missing out! The rapid advancement of technology and the age of the internet has had an drastic impact on the way businesses do marketing. More and more people are turning to the web as their main resource for locating products and services. By regularly maintaining a modern, optimized website, businesses have the opportunity to significantly increase their sales.

6. Assuming Your Product Sells Itself

If you don’t market your product or service, your customers won’t know about it. If they don’t know about it, they can’t buy it. The concept is simple, yet far too many business owners fail to see that marketing is a necessary component of the business cycle. Marketing is not an extracurricular activity that takes you away from your business… it IS your business.

7. Procrastinating

Putting things off is a killer when it comes to marketing. You must have a plan and some kind of time management system in place. Prioritize your goals, develop your budget, create your strategy, and then make it happen. Too many businesses miss the boat because they let it float by without getting on it. Get your team together and get moving on it!

8. Being a Perfectionist

You’ll likely never have a “perfect” website or a perfect product but that’s okay! The important part is that you get out there! You can tweak things as you go along and improvements WILL come later – but if you try to get everything “right” before you start then you’ll never start.

9. Doing It Alone

You can do your marketing alone but it is harder, and without support you are more likely to fail and waste a lot of time, energy and money in the process. Bring in the experts where it counts and outsource when you need to. Hiring designers and marketing professionals actually often SAVES you money in the long run, and their knowledge and experience usually serves to MAKE you money. Marketing professionals will help you identify how to most effectively spend your marketing dollar are, and where you can save.

People will work on corporate identity, but not plan for the budget to implement it. Build the car, but not have enough money to put gas in the engine. While it’s essential to have an initial budget for developing your logo, website and marketing materials, it’s also crucial that you have an ongoing plan for how you are going to get the word out and a budget for putting your plan into action.

The best way to do this is to create a marketing strategy and setting a monthly or yearly marketing budget to make sure it happens. A marketing budget is a guide to ensure that you are staying on target with estimated costs vs. the actual costs.

Everyone has heard the phrase “You have to spend money to make money.” However many companies tend to under spend on marketing, thinking that by not spending they are saving. But by not spending on marketing, they are missing out on an enormous amount of business!!!

What does a marketing budget include?

Your marketing budget will include all of the prices that you expect to pay for each type of advertising you do. This would include printed materials, website development and ongoing maintenance and search engine optimization. It would also include radio and commercials, trade shows, advertisements in newspapers and other publications, mailings, etc.

How much should a business spend on marketing in their budget?

The amount of money a company should budget for marketing varies greatly by industry and business size. The US Small Business Administration and the Counselors to America’s Small Business define the variable for a proper marketing budget to be between 2% and 10% of sales. Some companies spend up to 20% of net sales. The average is between 4% and 6%.

Are there guidelines that help determine what a marketing budget should be?

There are guidelines that should be considered when setting your marketing budget.

• First consider any development or refinement of your current branding. Is your image up to par? Do you have the professional logo, website and marketing materials in place that represent you as a credible company? Is there consistency in the look and feel of your materials? If not, what needs to be revamped?
• Second, what are the ongoing expenses of advertising, maintaining and promoting your brand to your target audience? If you stop advertising, they will forget you. If you don’t keep your website and materials up to date, you will lose credibility and rankings with the search engines. So what is your plan for keeping your company visible and what will it cost?
• You can visit the Small Business Administration (Sba.gov) for more guidelines and information. They have charts that compare revenue with ideal marketing budget percentages. They also list variables that need to be considered.

Marketing is a fundamental ingredient for growth and profitability. Many companies fail simply because they do not allocate enough money for marketing. When done properly, marketing brings back sold returns.

In today's competitive world of brand marketing, using the power of partnership brand marketing to gain marketing exposure and utilize new distribution channels is not only smart but also an essential marketing tool for businesses who want to remain competitive in today's constantly changing marketplace. As corporate and marketing budgets are always an issue, partnership brand marketing programs provide a way to grow your business and acquire new customers and reach new market segments.

What is Partnership Brand Marketing?

Partnership brand marketing brings two companies and brands together—each with its own brand equity and its own distribution strength. Whether teaming a fast food restaurant with a movie, pairing cereal with toys, or aligning a car manufacturer with a theme park to capture the family segment, partnership brand marketing creates strategic alliances for companies that reach areas in which they may not normally compete—providing more marketing exposure and ultimately gaining new customers.

True partnership brand marketing programs are more than just promotions. When carried out at a strategic level, partnership marketing can be expansive and deliver its full potential. Strategies can involve all elements of the marketing mix and thus have an impact on a company's overall marketing message, its advertising programs, as well as product packaging and merchandising. Partnership marketing programs can also create joint sales and distribution opportunities, broader in-store merchandising, more compelling packaging and marketing material and overall offer stronger value to the consumer.

Creating strong, relevant and effective partnership brand marketing programs can be a cornerstone of every company's marketing plan. Partnership brand marketing can actually affect and contribute to all elements of the marketing mix, including product and service offerings, price, locations, distribution, and promotions. For example:

• Partnership marketing can affect the actual product or service, increasing the overall value and providing stronger benefits to consumers
• Partnership marketing adds value to the overall price element by delivering a higher level of perceived value and providing consumers more reasons to purchase
• Partnership marketing impacts the location and distribution element, as it can open up new places to offer services or sell product and gain shelf space
• Partnership marketing delivers increased marketing exposure and shares in the equity/strength of each partner's brand.

What are the key benefits to Partnership Marketing?

Benefits of creating partnership brand marketing programs include:

• Broadens the reach of a company's target audience
• Increases marketing exposure
• Extends its marketing budget
• Broadens the scope and purpose of marketing strategy, allowing a company to market in a variety of new ways
• Saves money
• Help in gaining new customers in new market segments

Elements of a company's marketing plan, such as promotions, advertising, product, in-store merchandising, distribution, direct, online and public relations can be added to ensure that partnership brand marketing programs become more expansive. Program overlays can include cross-company functions, including corporate/general management, human resources and special events. By leveraging possible program overlays, companies can deliver special incentives and employee benefits with the partner company and create special product-launch events.

How do you identify a Strategic Partner that is right for you?

When looking for the right marketing partnership, you need to carefully align with another brand that delivers similar attributes and quality, while providing increased marketing exposure in an alternative means of distribution.  Choose a partner that makes sense to your business and to the consumer. There should be a synergy and balance in a relationship between two very different brands that consumers identify with. In order for it to work, it must be a win-win-win relationship for the consumer and both companies. For a strategic partnership to work,

• There must be equal value for both brands in the relationship
• The brands’ values must match each other
• The strategy must be easily understood by the consumer

Marketing campaigns are investments in your company. As with any investment, marketing campaigns need to be monitored, measured and compared to other investments to ensure you are spending your money wisely.

Return on investment (ROI) is a measure of the profit that results from each investment. ROI is calculated as a percentage. In other words, it’s the percentage of profit you earn after you subtract out what you spent on the investment.
 

Figuring ROI calculations for marketing campaigns can be complicated, since there may be many variables on both the profit side and the investment side. However, understanding how to calculate ROI is critical to producing the best possible results with your marketing investments.

By knowing how to calculate your ROI, you can focus on campaigns that deliver the best result and you will know how to spend your marketing budget. For example, if one campaign yields a 10% ROI while another generates 50%, where will you choose to invest your money next time? The answer is obvious!

ROI helps you improve your ongoing marketing campaigns. Monitoring your ROI will allow you to identify what is working for you, and which variables yeild the best performance.

During tough times, companies often cut back or eliminate their marketing budgets – a dangerous move since marketing is an investment to produce revenue. By determining return on investment, you can help your company move away from the idea that marketing is an unnecessary expense that can be cut when times get tough. ROI will justify marketing investments.

When it comes to ROI, you have three options. 1. Not have track your ROI. 2. Calculate some of your ROI. 3. Measure and track all of your investments.

In the worst case scenario, when you don’t track your ROI or measure the performance of your investments, your company will not know what works and what doesn’t, and will struggle to meet its goals.  If you track some of your ROI, you will have a general idea of how your marketing dollars are working for you, but you won’t know the exact percentage of profit you are generating from your campaigns, therefore you make the mistake of cutting the budget in tough times. In the ideal situation, you measure and track all of your marketing campaigns and you know what ROI each campaign is generating. With this model, your company understands and supports the ongoing marketing investments you make because there is solid data to support the investment and identify the return.

Steps in Effective ROI Strategy

You are in business to make a profit. Therefore, it is a good idea to measure ROI on all of your marketing investments. Take a look at your sales process. If it is long and complex, you may choose to modify it to make your ROI calculations simpler.

Establish Your Formulas

There are several figures you’ll need to calculate your ROI:

• Cost of goods sold (COGS): The cost to produce a product or service. This includes costs of materials, vendors and subcontractors that go into physically producing the product or service.
• Marketing investment: This includes just the cost of the media, for example the cost to place an advertisement in a publication or the cost of the air time to run a commercial.
• Revenue: This is the income from the sales that are generated from the campaign. It can be tricky to tie revenue to a specific campaign, especially when you run a variety of campaigns and have a long sales process. There are ways to simplify this, for example having dedicated phone number for each campaign, or having a specific landing page on your website that track visitors for  each campaign. Tools such as Constant Contact allow you to track results from email campaigns.

Determine an ROI Goal

Set an ROI goal for your individual campaigns and entire budget. This will give you more power over your budget and provide you a way to measure and compare results. Determine a threshold and floor for each campaign. Only run a campaign if you project that it will hit the threshold. Otherwise, cut it and put your money elsewhere.

Set the Marketing Budget

There is no “one-size-fits-all” answer to the amount a company should invest in their marketing budget. But by establishing your ROI goal and profit goals, you will be able to calculate the amount of money you should spend on marketing and you’ll feel confident that you’re spending the right amount of money to meet your goals.

Calculate, Track and Improve Your ROI Results

By developing and committing to a managed tracking and reporting process, you can build solid measurements, even if you have a complicated sales process. Do your best to estimate figures, if needed. The trick is keeping consistent in tracking, monitoring, and evaluating your campaigns.

ROI strategy is a process. Use your ROI formula to continually test new ways to improve your campaigns; then focus on investing your money in the campaigns that produce the greatest return for your company.

The more you understand ROI, the more control you have over your marketing investments. By continually studying and improve your reporting capabilities, you will be able to use ROI to improve your campaigns and generate more profit for your company.