As you embark on annual strategic marketing planning, ask yourself these questions:
Some research can be done periodically while other research may be better integrated into your sales process. Let’s look at one form of research as an example: customer surveys.
Customer surveys give manufacturers insight into buyers’ needs and preferences. Routinely surveying customers at sale completion—as well as lost customers on what went wrong—will generate ongoing data. If you have a new product development question or want more in-depth feedback, consider a special survey project.
Customer surveys provide more than satisfaction ratings. Surveys can be designed to help you anticipate trends and gain a competitive advantage.
Create a meaningful customer survey to get actionable results. I recommend you work with an objective partner to help craft an optimal survey. It can be hard to do solely in house. You’re so close to your company you could unintentionally introduce bias to the process.
Using the feedback you get from customer surveys, make changes that address their needs and preferences. Listen to their views on where your company excels and communicate that excellence in your marketing. Prioritize improvements based on what will improve buyer experiences.
If you’d like to discuss your annual strategic marketing planning, get in touch with StratMg!
–parin
Managing Partner
Graph source: B2B International
With over two decades of experience, Parin leads an expert demand-generation agency, StratMg, that helps industrial manufacturing clients achieve unambiguous and quantified organic sales growth across the US, EMEA & APAC.
Parin has built & positioned StratMg to be a value-added marketing services provider that strives to create a culture of quantified sales-driven marketing initiatives leading to sustained business growth through channel management, diversification, new customer acquisition and retention strategies and tactical execution.
