The first of the year is a great time to reconnect with all of your best clients. Right after the holidays is the perfect time to set yourself apart from the competition by providing your customers with a value-added extra. That little extra can be in the form of a Marketing Review.
What the heck is a marketing review? How do you one? Glad you asked. It’s not that easy, but it can be very worthwhile. Here’s the homework you’ll need to do.
- Start with January 1st and document all of the projects and promotions that you did for this particular client. Provide all of the information that you can. What they asked for. What they ordered. How the project was distributed. What were the results (if you know them)?
- Write down other projects or promotions that they may have done and not included promotional products or not included you.
- Make a note of times where the client could have saved money or had a more effective program had they planned ahead or gotten you involved sooner.
- Make a note of any significant competitive initiatives by your customers’ competition and of any market or economic trends that may have impacted their business.
- Make some observations about what other advertising media your customer used last year. This can give you an idea of where you can find some extra budget money. See if they were using co-op advertising dollars from any of their top suppliers. This also can be a source of budget money for you.
- Get out your 2014 calendar and check out Chase’s Calendar of Events or even Google upcoming events and significant days. Make a list of days, weeks or events that your customer might be able to create solid promotions around.
Now, you’re ready to get to work. Create a professional looking document. Here are some potential headings for the sections.
I. 2013 Promotional Overview. In this section, you will recap the information that you wrote down in numbers one and two above. Provide an objective view of what the client’s marketing efforts looked like to you.
II. 2013 Competitive Landscape. In this section you will provide your observations of what you saw happening in their industry. Mention the successes and failures of their competitors. Provide some research on what their industry was doing. This will be your recap of your homework done in #3 above.
III. 2014 Recommendations. In this section, you can outline the upcoming year and the projects that you wish to see repeated (and improved) and suggest ways that you can enhance some of the efforts you didn’t get a chance to work on last year. Suggest ways that promotional products can be used to make their other advertising media more effective or more measureable. Suggest some ways to help your client advertise, recognize, motivate, promote, incentivize and train. Suggest how you can help them grow their people, their presence and their profits.
IV. Executive Summary. In this section, touch on some of the main points of your report. Here is a place where you can point out the thoughts you developed in #3 of your homework. You can point out how you can save them money and how you can create more effective programs for them by getting involved in the marketing process earlier.
Do this for your best customers and they will perceive you as a partner and a marketing professional committed to helping them solve their problems. And as I love to say, Problem Solvers Always Make Money!
