Marketing, communications, public and media relations, client service and business development – these all go hand-in-hand. Are your activities in each of these areas well-coordinated and supporting your business in alignment with your goals? Are there areas that, with just a little nudge, you could be seeing greater impact? Do your tools and activities support your brand or are they tired and in need of a refresh? From time to time, it’s wise to do a marketing assessment to ensure you’re staying on track with current goals and evolving with best practices.
Geared toward professional service providers, such as attorneys, architects and accountants, this PDF downloadable marketing assessment (link below) asks you to reflect on several areas related to your current marketing, public relations and business development activities and rank how effective each area is at meeting your strategic goals.
Your responses to the same statement may be different when viewed through the lens of your overall firm, practice or business unit, or individual goals. You may want to take the assessment separately from each of those perspectives and see how well aligned the responses are. At the firm or practice level, consider asking others in the organization to take the assessment independently (or at least parts of the assessment, especially in the brand, marketing communications and website areas) to see if your responses align. We find that once you start looking at the following areas more closely, there is often low-hanging fruit well within your grasp that can help support your business development efforts.
Taking the Marketing Assessment
The statements within the assessment are intended to provoke thought and, sometimes, more questions. As you move through each area, you might want to make notes regarding questions or thoughts that occur to you. For example, is there a particular area where you feel you could do more if you had the right technology or administrative support to assist you? Is there a new opportunity that you could develop or promote based on external drivers, such as new legislation or market conditions? Perhaps working with a consultant or coach to plan or execute sustained activity would help you realize your goals. Each question raised has the potential to open a new door for your business. So, dive in, be honest with yourself about what you know (and what you don’t know) and get curious.