Every organization can improve the performance of its marketing operations – perfection is what we all aspire to but will never achieve.

You can use existing resources to identify opportunities for new products and services, or new markets to enter or new audiences to target -so before someone in your organization makes the fatal assumption that improvement requires additional resources, read on because what I offer below are 7 proven steps to improving marketing performance with your current resources!

As you read this post, it is important to keep in mind that I am defining ‘marketing’ as more than promotion.  In this post, marketing includes product, price, promotion, distribution, and customer experience so you will see examples that impact how your organization works together in order to consistently deliver unique value to the customer.

By the way, I have included a quote from Yogi Berra with each step because I have been a Yankee fan since birth and I happen to believe Mr. Berra’s words of wisdom support the points raised in this post.  Let me know what you think!  (And for those of you too young to recognize the name, feel free to visit this site.)

Step 1: Clearly articulate the vision

If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

Whenever I start working with an organization, I like to meet with the key leaders and pick their brains – especially about the vision of the organization.  Unfortunately, when I ask about the vision of the organization, I typically get as many different answers as I have meetings.

How does this help your current resources improve your marketing performance?  The clarity helps your staff focus on what’s really important – and stop using precious resources on what isn’t important so your organization saves human, financial and technological resources.

Best of all, beyond the immediate benefits your organization will enjoy, this clarity also changes everyone’s thinking about the future and that typically brings new ideas to the table that are more focused on the vision.  Suddenly the discussion becomes “We should do this because it supports our vision…” rather than “Maybe this will help…”

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An Introduction to Blogs

by patmcgraw on June 26, 2009

I was recently asked to provide an overview of blogging – here’s the presentation without the insightful, information and witty audio portion. Hope you enjoy this anyway – and feel free to contact me for the audio voice over – I am willing to do it by phone or in person. :)

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4 Steps to Marketing Optimization Now Available on Scribd

June 21, 2009

Marketing Optimization

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