Marketing Timeline: Measuring your Marketing and Advertising to assess if anybody is out there, does anyone care and does any of it really work?

The answer is, well… yes and no. That’s because businesses…can’t really tell what works and what doesn’t work. It can be like the mystical aurora borealis of business, you can see it but businesses tend to blindly search for their audience. Maybe because they think they have better things to do, that’s understandable. In fact, there is an old saying: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half.” That is the same problem. The well to Marketing and advertising dollars can run dry attempting to analyze confusing results.

Build a Marketing Timeline. Now, let’s go back to the blackboard and explain what we mean… Shall we? A marketing timeline has six or seven components as shown in the diagram. Once these items are examined in detail, the strategy is set them in motion over a period of time, let’s say six to eighteen months. For example:

1. Vision. Set a clear path to where you and your business would like to go with your product or service.

2. Skills. Next, access the skills and experience levels of your staff to bring your vision closer to reality.

3. Budget. Establishing a budget beforehand will keep you on track and help you stay committed to activities and results.

4. Audience. Your audience isn’t everyone in the world so know who they are in detail and how to reach them.

5. Educational Needs. Both you and your staff may need to buy into your product or service with additional training and your audience may need to be educated about benefits and value of your product or service.

6. Set Goals. Make them reasonable based on your research and your budget, skills set and audience reach

7. Measure Results. Finally, measure the results within your marketing timeline in a specific block of time with surveys, feedback, and web traffic; bounce rates, age groups, and sales numbers. Dig deep into how and why you received the results you did.

10 Ridiculously Simple Marketing Tips – touches on the things you need to know about marketing, developing your strategy and effectively delivering your message. This process and its success can be difficult to measure however managing it is a vital function for any business. For as little as 99 cents you can download any title in the series from Amazon to a kindle or e-book reader. The book covers 10 tips when determining a marketing strategy, what to focus on, analyzing your results, timeline management, dealing with target markets and just how to go about effective marketing techniques and positive sales results. Visit John DeGaetano Productions website home page for self help books, plays and more information. “Find what’s out there.”

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