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By: Vann Baker on Tue Jan 9, 2007

Step 4: Refine and Perfect

Refine your marketing message and focus on marketing campaigns and messages that work, repeating Step 2 and Step 3 at end the end of each quarter. You can experiment with increasing your marketing budget each quarter to reach more prospective customers. By determining which strategy or campaign works best, over the next few months, shift more of your budget into the marketing strategy that's reaching your target market and bringing you the results you want.

Five tips to make tracking easier

1) Simplify your marketing efforts. Focus on one theme per quarter but do try variations of your marketing message. Different graphics, images, and colors may contribute to different responses in recipients. Be sure to track which version customers respond to better.

2) Centralize your lead results. Even if you different people in different departments responding to leads, make sure you centralize data collection so everyone involved will track and record data in one place. Relying on estimates or monthly meetings to try and determine which what strategy is working can be counter productive, especially if you have a campaign that flops and you need to change your message immediately.

3) Analyze what works and why. And find out what does not work and why. If you're not getting the response you had hoped for with a new promotion or message, ask your prospects why and determine what's at fault. Is the message not clear? Is the media appropriate? Does your offer or message hit any "hot" buttons?

4) Create a call to action. Does your offer have a time limitation and a call to action? Don't just rely on the offer itself to prompt a response by the recipient. Make your prospects want to respond right away to the offer. Have a respond by date or put a time limitation so they can't wait for more than a few days to respond.

5) Refine your marketing message. Sometimes "great" ideas don't result in a big response. Remember that you can refine your marketing message in order to get a greater response or change the message graphically so you get noticed instead of lost with all the other offers your market may be receiving.

Vann Baker is the president and creative director of Design-First, a marketing company that helps companies of all sizes and in many different industries with branding, marketing strategies and creating effective marketing materials. Vann has over 25 years of marketing experience, and has created websites, brochures, e-blasts, catalogs, direct mail and effective marketing campaigns. For more tips and information about marketing your company, go to: http://www.design-first.com

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