The use of marketing strategies, surprisingly, is not that common in small-business. Most small-businesses do general marketing (brochures, business cards, radio commercials, TV, etc) for two primary reasons. The companies they advertise through provide them with all the data they need to not only sell them on the idea of marketing through the advertiser’s medium, but also stats on the actual marketing method – reach, frequency, viewership, demographics, etc. The second reason this is the case is because small businesses are lazy. taking the time to do research and actually learn about their market and how best to reach them is certainly not common place.
The SP Consulting Marketing Matrix is a tool
I use to analyze the success of individual marketing strategies. This takes some work but ultimately, will help you identify what tools you have that are the most effective.
The matrix involves four specific things that must be analyzed in order to determine a strategies effectiveness. The most important thing to remember is that you can’t measure one aspect of your strategies and expect those ideas to hold water.
You must start by measuring the most obvious of things, growth as measured by total revenue. This measurement is actually two fold. You first need to measure overall revenue growth for your business, or product if you have a product line. You must identify if you have suffered a loss or made gains. This doesn’t tell you much but you must keep this number in mind. Second, you need to be able to measure the amount of revenue earned from your specific strategy. This will be done through a variety of measurement strategies we’ll discuss in a later post. Don’t fret if revenue wasn’t incredibly significant because it can be completely acceptable based on the other four factors.
Your bottom line is the next step. Again, you need to measure total profit for the period you implemented the strategy and total profit that is directly related to your strategy. This is important for obvious reasons. Those of you that suffered a decreased amount of revenue were likely worried at first. 
Just because your strategy didn’t bring in a significant amount of revenue, if your profit was significantly increased, a little more time invested could result in a superior strategy.
Now you must measure productivity. What time was invested into this strategy? How much was the labor cost? Did productivity decrease or increase? If thus far your strategy has looked good financially you cannot be content. If that growth required either a significant amount of additional work or decreased employee moral, or ultimately, productivity, your strategy is not necessarily a good one. How your changes affects your employees is equally important as revenue and profit.
Last, measure your customers reaction. Just because you had more sales doesn’t mean your customers are satisfied. Are there increased customer service requests due to malfunctions in your product, or they are unsure of how to use it? Were your customers return customers or new customers. Remember, “I’d rather have 1 customer 1,000 times than 1,000 customers 1 time.” Did this strategy scare away or deter current customers from purchasing your product or service? If so, you aren’t on the right track. You need to draw in new sales while maintaining and growing your current customer base.
That’s the SP Consulting Marketing Matrix. You need all four factors before you can truly determine that your marketing strategies are working. You can’t just base your decisions on one or two aspects. It requires all four. The only step left is to figure out how to gather the data. How do you measure revenue, profit, productivity, and customer satisfaction directly impacted by a single strategy? It’s coming.
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