In order to understand whether the marketing system in your business is working, you first need to make sure that such a system actually exists.

What is a business marketing system?

It is a set of marketing tools that ensure communication with potential and existing clients of your company, informing them that your product best meets their specific need.

The levels of complexity of a business marketing system depend on a variety of factors:

  1. Time on the market
  2. Company turnover
  3. Sales geography
  4. Management’s level of thinking
  5. Presence or absence of a data-driven approach
  6. Level of market competition
  7. Product life cycle stage
  8. Level of technological equipment of the enterprise
  9. Economic and social situation in the region

In other words, the organization of marketing in a company can be conditionally divided into three types:

1. No marketing system
2. Partial marketing system
3. Full-fledged marketing system

Let’s break down each of these cases:

No marketing system

This means that the company’s marketing does not consistently generate leads/clients using marketing communication channels.

  • In other words, if clients come to you because your acquaintances recommend you, that’s not marketing.
  • If you have a website, but it doesn’t bring in clients, that’s not marketing.
  • If you produce a product or service but don’t know who your target audience is or how to sell it, that’s not marketing either.

Partial marketing system

In this case, your marketing generates leads/clients, but not consistently. What are the signs of a partially functioning marketing system:

  • Leads/clients are coming to you, but you don’t know where they’re coming from.
  • You have a website, but you’re unsure how it’s being promoted.
  • Marketing activities happen sporadically, typically when “client numbers start to drop.”

Full-fledged marketing system

Lead generation/client acquisition happens on a consistent basis. You have a clear understanding of which channel and source each specific lead comes from. You know your competitors, customers, and the market situation. You track industry innovations and implement them before your competitors do. You can easily forecast next month’s sales volume based on accumulated statistics. You understand the role of each marketing specialist, their contribution to overall success, and the growth of the company.

Based on this, here is a checklist for non-functional marketing in a company:

  1. You are not getting any new clients.
  2. If new clients do come to you, you don’t know where they came from.
  3. You don’t know the conversion rate between traffic and leads/clients.
  4. You don’t understand the effectiveness of your marketing spend.
  5. You don’t have a marketing strategy.
  6. You don’t know the traffic statistics of your top five competitors.
  7. You can’t describe in one sentence what makes you better than your competitors.
  8. You only think about marketing when demand for your product drops.
  9. You don’t have a CRM system.
  10. You believe that social media is only for collecting likes.
  11. You don’t have Google Analytics code installed on your website.
  12. You don’t know who has the passwords for access to your website’s hosting.
  13. You don’t have a Facebook Pixel installed on your site, yet you are using targeting ads.
  14. You think marketing is an expense, not an investment.
  15. You don’t have a marketer/marketing department or a marketing agency as a contractor.

If you recognized yourself in more than half of the points on this checklist — submit a request, and we will consult you. While you’re not investing in marketing, your competitors are already doing it successfully.