Ultimate Marketing Audit for Small Business Owners | Maintain a Sustainable Business

March 9, 2017 by Christine

This audit tells us how well your business is executing on its digital marketing, digital presence, social media marketing, and messaging. This is how Viral Solutions develops its plan that will in turn make your vision and your dream a reality. This is part of who we are, how we make a difference and what makes us unique.

This is what we look for in small business clients. There is no other way to get started.

At Viral Solutions we evaluate our potential working relationship and our clients’ current way of doing business.

Just like we know our prospective digital marketing clients evaluate our skills, we in turn look at your strengths and weaknesses. This is what creates lasting working relationships.

In order to take your digital marketing to the next level we use a capability assessment in key areas.

Here is a list of critical digital marketing categories a business must optimize:

1. Strategic Approach: Does the business owner and their team think strategically or tactically? Is their strategy well defined? Is the business aligned and road mapped? How agile is their strategic approach?
2. Performance Improvement Process: Are key performance indicators regularly measured? Is the click attribution weighted? Are customer lifetime values used to determine expenditures and investments?
3. Management Buy-In: Does management give verbal support without resourcing? Are the active champions of the of the processes part of ownership? Is overall digital marketing strategy an integral part of all decisions?
4. Resourcing and Human Talent Structure: Are core skills internally centralized or are third party consultants or agencies used? Are skills continually taught and certified? Is there a blend of marketing skills?
5. Data Infrastructure: How are the data, IT services and tools dispersed? Is everything integrated? Are the resources optimized and flexible?
6. Integrated Customer Communications: Are the core push activities synchronized? Is there an integrated inbound process? Is the integrated paid-owned media personalized? Is all content and media optimized to maximize Customer Lifetime Value?
7. Customer Experience (User Experience): Does the web site have personalized support for both desktop and mobile? Is the messaging and customer experience integrated and personalized from social media, email and SMS (text messaging)? Is the personalization contextualized?

Once we have assessed the state of your overall sales and marketing efforts, both online and offline, we then determine the scope of work you will need help with to exceed your expectations and goals.

In order to maximize your return on investment we then categorize prospective clients in five different groups based on their digital capability, which are as follows:

1. Initial: Companies at this phase still have a lot of work to do. They likely have no strategy, no key performance indicators (KPIs), limited management buy in, limited or no customer database, no integrated customer communications and no integrated customer experience in their website.
2. Managed: At this phase, companies may have prioritized a few marketing activities, and have KPIs based on volume only. While there is a small amount of management support for digital marketing, there aren’t enough resources being allocated to it. There is desktop and mobile web support, but no real personalized customer experience. At this point, the company is just beginning to develop digital capability.
3. Defined: By this stage, the company has a clearly defined vision and marketing strategy. It has upgraded its KPIs to focus on quality and “last click” attribution. There is increased investment in digital marketing, and a centralized hub of dedicated marketing resources. There is also an integrated inbound approach for customer communications, and a desktop and mobile experience that has at least been partially personalized.
4. Quantified: Businesses at this phase have a well-developed strategy and roadmap for digital marketing, with KPIs based on value. Management is actively championing the merits of digital marketing and investing appropriately. The customer experience is integrated and personalized on web, mobile, email and social media.
5. Optimized: By now, companies have an agile strategic approach to digital marketing with lifetime-value KPIs. Management has become an integral part of developing strategy. The company has a flexible approach to optimizing data and infrastructure resources, and has fully contextual personalized experiences and recommendations for customers across all platforms. Its media is optimized for ROI and maximizing CLV.

This assessment allows us to know exactly how to help you achieve success with your company. Sometimes these are hard subjects to discuss and overcome. That is what makes us unique! We do not avoid the elephant in the room. We do not let you avoid them either.

We believe strongly that in order to build and maintain a sustainable business online and offline the foundation must be solid, square, plumb and level. Processes that are mundane and predictable must be systematized and thought through methodically, not only from a software standpoint but also taking into account the people involved on all sides of the sales and marketing process. The remaining processes and business model must be agile and flexible enough to withstand change of all types.

These are our beliefs. This is how we deliver results from the ground up. This is what you can expect from Viral Solutions. We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves so business can be fun again.

Where a potential client falls in this list helps us determine where we need to begin and how much work we need to do. We know our clients expect our best at all times and to do what we say we will do.

For more information about how you can get started with our services, contact us today at Viral Solutions.

Thomas von Ahn

Chief Elephant Slayer for Viral Solutions LLC

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful

men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they

don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton

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Filed Under: Business Tips Tagged With: Business Strategy, Change Management Process, Change Strategy, Concentration Business Strategy, employee relations, Internal Growth Strategy, marketing strategy, performance management, Strategy Session by Viral Solutions