OK, a bit rude of me to ask, but well, are you? Or more to the point “do you”?
More and more often I hear and see companies, especially in their early days NOT doing a SWOT analysis on their marketing spend when in reality this is exactly the time they should be doing one. With little extra money in the pot, every penny being spent should be analyised and accounted for and if it’s not working then it should be cut from the budget – immediately. (After all why throw good money after bad?)
So what does a good SWOT analysis entail? Well firstly let me just explain what SWOT is, it stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. So whenever you do or are considering a marketing campaign it’s always well worth doing one of these analysis. Sounds hard? Nah! Not really, not when you know what you are doing. So to help you along I found a very interesting article that shows the SWOT analysis for Telstra’s marketing spend with the Alan Jones Radio show in Sydney back in 2002.
You can find it here
Interestingly they went ahead with the significant spend knowing that one of the major weaknesses was that the audience they wanted to reach wasn’t the key demographic for the show. They went ahead knowing that they were selling to an already “loyal” sector of their market audience…to my mind quite a significant splash of money to only reinforce (and run the risk as they also acknowledge of “message wear out”) their current marketing message.
However it comes down to the old saying that it’s easier to turn an exisiting customer into a further customer that to engage an entirely fresh customer altogether. What Telstra are quite rightly looking to do is take their already loyal customer base and switch them onto new services within their range that they have to offer. They are also quite smartly looking to do that in a friendly “Hey, I’d recommend you guys look at this service too it could be of interest,” type of way. A more softly recommended way of selling. Which is likely to be more successful than a more “in your face” campaign.
So yes it was expensive, and yes they were selling to their current audience BUT I think they did do the right thing with the campaign (even if for one month of the 12 month contract Alan Jones was “off Air”!!!)
What do you think? And is selling to you current audience something you already do? Perhaps not, but then again maybe it could be your New Years Resolution to get further aquainted with your past clients to turn them into your future clients!
Happy New Year everyone!
Hi Freya – this is a great point. And so many business owners don’t seem to do this. I sometimes wonder if it’s because they’re too proud to admit that their ad, or letter that took them hours and hours to create actually sucked.
We keep a spreadsheet to track the results of every single bit of marketing we do. And if it’s not working it goes. Why waste money on something that isn’t working?
HI CatherineL,
Yes I think that probably is the case…but looking back to where we were ad wise when we first started, we sucked big time too and even now we “can still do better” – as a school teacher would say! It’s all a process of change and if you’re too proud to admit it as a business owner then i’m afraid you’ll sink like a stone. 🙂
Oh and your comment on Spreadies…yes…I totally agree – they are so simple and effective, you definately don’t need anything else but like you say you must act on the information you gather…if it isn’t working, cull it!! 🙂
Thanks for the comment.
Hi Great article
The web page
How to write a SWOT analysis has some useful templates for a SWOT of all types
Hi,
I learnt about SWOT when I done a marketing course for my promotional products company a few years back. I couldn’t remember what exactly it was all about as there was alot to take in at the time, but it does make interesting reading and is something that does need to be done in every business really.
Andy
A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is a tool used to provide a general or detailed snapshot of a Companies health. Think of your SWOT as a tune-up that every business needs periodically to diagnose and fix what’s a bit worn, what’s on the verge of breaking down, or what’s already broken and needs replacement–so that you can keep the business humming-even better than it has in the past.