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    • Action plan

    Setting marketing goals and analysing results

    Low effort

    High impact

    Is your company’s marketing activity contributing to sales targets? Too often, marketing becomes a box-ticking exercise with a company maintaining channels without a clear sense of what impact each are having. Setting marketing goals and learning to track and analyse results makes sure the investment you’re making pays off.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline
    What's involved? Ways to use this action plan Measuring impact
    1

    Talk to your sales team about what they need from marketing

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Whether it’s products sold or conversations started, marketing needs to support your team’s goals. Ask salespeople how marketing can help them do their job, particularly, what type and volume of leads they need.

    How to get employees involved in decision making

    Involving employees in decision making can give leaders valuable insights and lead to new ideas. Our checklist will help you get started.
    2

    Work out the impact marketing needs to have on your sales funnel

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    It’s likely you have defined the stages of your sales funnel and how many conversations you need to meet your targets. Understanding how much marketing activity is required to feed the funnel makes sure you can hit your targets.

    How to design key performance indicators

    Use this free template to set robust key performance indicators (KPIs) for staff and determine whether your business is moving forward.
    3

    Set monthly marketing goals and adjust resources accordingly

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Regularly measuring the impact of marketing makes sure you’re getting the most out of your investment. Start with a small number of metrics to get a benchmark and identify opportunities to improve.

    Using the SMART methodology to set goals

    Use our SMART goal-setting template to make each goal specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.
    4

    Set up a reporting structure and assign responsibilities

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Giving ownership of reporting and analysing marketing to a relevant team member empowers them to improve performance. Reporting to managers and the rest of the business builds accountability.

    Why is delegation so important?
    5

    Research marketing tools or technology that allows your team to better analyse results and draw up a plan for implementation

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Team members may need to upskill to effectively track marketing activity, whether it’s using marketing tools in new ways or implementing tracking. Tools can help them collect information that’s time-consuming or impossible to collate by hand.

    What to consider when choosing marketing technology

    Use our checklist to help you research, select and implement marketing technology in your business.

    What can I do with this Action Plan?

    Start this Action Plan

    Add some extra information to this plan and we’ll help you get it done.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline

    Download and print

    Get a printable template for this Action Plan, fill it in with some target dates, and share it with your team. Pin it on the wall where everyone can see it.

    Get the printable Action Plan

    Learning Groups

    We also run Learning Groups on these topics where you can join other leaders tackling the same challenges.

    Find a Learning Group

    How will I know if my action plan is working?

    Source of sales

    Knowing how customers discovered your business shows what marketing is effective

    Why this metric?

    Marketing needs to contribute to your revenue goals.

    How do I start tracking?

    Record how new customers found out about your company. The information can be collected automatically when customers are inputting their details or by salespeople.