Not Knowing These Marketing Issues About Your Company Guarantees Your Program's Failure

There are some things you must know about your marketing program that are essential to success.

As a matter of fact, I consider them a test that separates successful CMOs from other marketing leaders. You must know the answers to these questions to do your job of maximixing the effectiveness of your selling efforts.

Yes, I said "selling" because if your marketing dollars are not bringing incremental revue at a profit to the company, then you have aleady failed.

Here is a list of questions you should answer before you spend one dollar on advertising or promotions. Otherwise, you will have no way to evaluate the effectiveness of your spend or the impact on the company's bottom line.

What you must know about your customer

1. You don't know how many customers you have

2. You don't know your average sale

3. You don't know how your top 10-20% differ from your less profitable customers

4. You don't know where your best customers come from in terms of location

5. You don't know what your churn rate is

6. You don't know the main reasons your customers leave your company or why they buy your product

7. You don't know what competitors your customers also buy from

What you must know about your target markets

1. You don't know how big your universe is in terms of good, better, best prospects -- actual counts available from data sources

2. You don't know how to target your best prospects

3. You don't know how much you can afford to spend to acquire a new buyer or customer

4. You don't know how much you can afford to spend to sell your entry product

5. You don't know the lifetime value of your average customer

What you must know about your promotional efforts

1. You don't know what channels work best for you in terms of acquisition costs

2. You don't know what offers work best with your various target prospects

3. You don't know what channel combinations yield the lowest cost per sale or lowest cost per customer

4. You have not established a reliable tracking system to know where your sales are coming from such as which channel, which offer and which promotion

So much of the success that comes from marketing begins by asking the right questions. So do all you can to compile the above information, master it and then use it to develop your marketing goals and strategies.

What other areas do you think marketers fail to understand before they embark on their spending campaigns?