Informed by best practices in Performance Managment, we have developed a simple and intuitive set of criteria to assess marketing systems. Any business grows their marketing system through key stages as they slowly develop a mature marketing system that drives sales at the maxim level possible. Our objective based criteria provide a simple way to make your own assessment of the current state of your marketing system. If we engage with your business, we will provide our own assessment with recommendations for growing your system to the next level.
See our Marketing System Level Assessment below, based on our six criteria, and see where your business falls.
Poor or non-existent.
All businesses must start somewhere. The issue is how fast and how well can you grow your marketing system? We can help accelerate that process.
None.
You build a marketing system one campaign at a time. Begin with one campaign based on a strategic goal. Then keep adding more campaigns to cover the entire Customer Journey. You will be building an initial marketing system in the process.
Testing Key Conversions on some basic customer segments.
Many business models have obvious customer segments while others often have unique customer segments that you must work to identify. Different customer segments may share the same key conversions while others will be unique. Learning these crucial facts about your target market is the essential work of building an initial marketing system.
Few campaigns; mostly free marketing channels; some clear goals.
You build a marketing system one campaign at a time. New businesses need to test the waters to determine what offers work best, what marketing channels work best, and what is the Return-on-Ad-Spend (ROAS). Use free channels to learn as much as you can before testing paid channels and scale up only when they are working.
Little relevant data or measures.
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Our 15 Basic Campaigns cover five of the most important campaign goals across the Customer Journey. Picking the right ones is key to creating successful campaigns that drive the key conversions you need to motivate your prospects and customers through the Customer Journey.
Non-existent.
Naturally when you first start creating campaigns you don’t have a marketing system. You create one by building one campaign at a time. But thinking strategically about what your marketing system should look like and what it needs to achieve to drive traffic and generate sales is an important task that begins at Level 0.
Brand definition & Brand Promise supported by initial brand marketing.
Brand campaigns help build brand awareness in your target market and the add lift to all your other campaigns. A Level 1 marketing system has well-polished brand language and clear brand values that directly support your brand promise.
Minimal; Clarity variable.
Initial marketing strategies are naturally limited to essential goals and a handful of key campaigns. Level 1 marketing systems have campaigns based on clear strategic goals. Campaigns begin to align with each other to support each other in the Customer Journey and fulfill your overall marketing goals.
Identifying customer segments and Key Conversions.
Some business models have obvious customer segments while others have unique segments that require work to identify and validate. This important Level 1 work helps you save money by marketing only to legitimate customer segments. Customer segments share many key conversions, but others have unique conversions or require special messaging to motivate customers and prospects to take the next step in the Customer Journey. This is also critical work required for Level 1 marketing system development.
A few campaigns with specific goals; using a mix of paid and free marketing channels.
A Level 1 marketing system is focused on building a few key campaigns with specific campaign goals, designed to move prospects and customers through the entire Customer Journey. Campaign performance is measured, and campaigns are adjusted, changed, or eliminated as necessary. Marketing channels are tested to determine which are the most profitable.
Some data for key metrics (KPIs).
Our campaign recommendations come with recommended conversion metrics (KPIs) so you can accurately measure real conversion, and not just clicks or other irrelevant engagement activity. A Level 1 marketing system collects relevant KPIs using appropriate metrics depending on the type of campaign.
Nascent; early stage.
The work of building a marketing system moves beyond strategic planning into reality by implementing campaigns that support your strategic planning. Build it right from the beginning so you can build a mature marketing system on a solid foundation. You do that by building a Level 1 marketing system based on clear strategic planning.
A clearly defined brand with growing brand awareness in your target market.
A Level 2 marketing system uses brand campaigns effectively to build and maintain brand awareness that helps capture new leads early in the buying cycle. Brand campaigns keep your brand at the top of your prospects’ mind so when they are ready to mind, they think of you first!
Well defined; Clear goals focused on Key Conversions.
Level 2 marketing systems have a well-defined strategy based on key business goals supported by campaigns designed to fulfill campaign objectives that are in alignment with your business goals.
Identifying and validating customer segments and Key Conversions.
Moving beyond simply identifying customer segments and key conversions, a Level 2 marketing system validates your customer segments, ensuring that they are not a figment of your imagination. As you grow your business you gain a better understanding of your customers, what different segments have in common, what conversions that matter most with each segment, and what motivates them to buy. Key Conversions are well defined for each customer segment.
Multiple campaigns, implementing a mature strategy based on clear goals.
A Level 2 marketing system typically has multiple campaigns that complement each other, helping drive prospects and customers through the entire customer journey. These campaigns work in harmony to achieve multiple marketing goals.
Key data (KPIs) for all campaigns.
A Level 2 marketing system has defined key conversions and KPIs for all your campaigns and you have a real understanding of how and why your campaigns work to fulfill their objectives.
Growing a comprehensive system.
The work of a level 2 marketing system is focused on growing a comprehensive system that fully addresses all your marketing needs, driving prospects and customers efficiently through the Customer Journey, with controls that enable you to manage the process to ensure a steady flow of prospects and customers at each stage of the Customer Journey.
A mature brand established in the mind of the customer.
Level 3 marketing systems have a mature brand, one that is well defined in the mind of the customer. They know what you stand for and know exactly what kind of customer experience to expect when they do business with you.
A comprehensive strategy across the entire Customer Journey.
A Level 3 marketing strategy has well-defined, clear goals that provide a comprehensive set of marketing goals and campaign objectives, maximizing the efficiency of all your marketing processes across the entire Customer Journey.
Clearly identified across all customer segments.
Key conversions are clearly identified across all customer segments, and measured to optimize campaign performance, improving efficiencies in all your campaign outcomes.
Campaigns that form a mosaic of complementary objectives working together to drive efficient conversions throughout the Customer Journey.
A Level 3 marketing system consists of processes that support your campaigns, like PR, reputation management, and SEO, based on clear, complementary and comprehensive marketing goals. Campaigns achieve maximum performance with adjustments made when necessary.
Key data (KPIs) for all campaigns; Tracking historical trends.
A Level 3 marketing system has defined key conversions and KPIs for all your campaigns based on historical trends with built in resiliency based on your knowledge or your customer segments and key conversions that enable you to adapt to sudden changes in the business environment, including changes in customer needs, tastes, and desires, along with new trends driven by technology or changes in the economy.
Maintaining a Fully Functioning System.
The work of a Level 3 marketing system is greatly reduced because it has mature, well-driven processes, many of which have been automated to increase overall efficiency throughout the Customer Journey. A Level 3 marketing system must constantly be updated to keep up with changes in customer needs and business trends but doing so is easy because the processes are so well-defined and automated sequences can quickly be modified to support whatever changes you need to make. A Level 3 marketing system is highly resilient and increases the sustainability of the business organization.
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