Lets start with an easy one.

Sometimes the product or service itself is not the biggest attraction. If you work with a well known brand or you're well known to your customer base, it might be worth focusing on yourself or your brand for your marketing.

Some brands will only let you say certain things in your marketing. Evaluate what's already available to you. Does it need to be changed? Do your new marketing materials need to reflect the design? Are you required to put disclaimers or logos on your marketing?

For example product samples, alternative services, or something with your logo/tagline.

For example, a car might symbolize independence, or an alarm system might symbolize security.

For example, Jolly Good Media's values are on our home page. They are informed clients, good communication, and clean & functional design. Try not to say honesty. Everyone says honesty.

tagline could make you 15% or more on your marketing materials.

A divorce attorney and a jewelry salesman deal with different emotions. What emotions are your customers experiencing when they interact with your product?

Does this need to be consistent throughout your marketing materials? Spending 15 minutes on your Was your business started a long time ago? This could be an asset as older companies are seen as more trustworthy. Was the company beginning memorable? Was it inspirational? Mary Kay often use their origin story to their advantage.

For example, Honda cars are known for reliability.

Is it the people you work with? The opportunities it brings? What your business gives to customers?

Age, gender, location, background, race, and income are all good descriptors. Try to be as specific as you can.

If so, why are you trying to find a different market? How would you describe your current market?

Happiness? Relief?

Are they trying to become financially independent? Are they trying to look better or become more important in their workplace? What aspirations drive your target market?

This is your USP (unique selling point).

This could include common interests or shopping habits. Try to make it different to the first question on this page.

Does it often take too long for people to respond? Is it very expensive?

Try to be as honest as possible.

Try to look at yourself from a consumers point of view and remember that industry influences how they see your brand. For example people are often distrusting of lawyers in general which can lead to many law firms unfairly being seen as untrustworthy.

Don't underestimate the power of referrals.

What sets you apart? Are you cheaper? Have you been around longer? Are you more local?

Does this difference factor into your current marketing materials? Do you tell customers these differences yourself?

Do they have an online presence? Are they using print or billboards? This could act as a guide for marketing or an indication of areas to avoid.

Often we won’t have access to these materials but we can learn lessons from them. For example, if the competition advertises in national magazines, perhaps you can mimic them in local magazines.

Are people moving online? Are they taking advantage of new technologies? Are they experimenting with different messages?

This isn’t always easy to predict. Perhaps it would happen if another company went out of business or their preferred competitor disappointed them. In a small community like the AV people often have their go-to people, but these can be fragile relationships.

Do you need to wait for them to fail? Could they be rewarded for switching to you?

What would you have to do for a customer to leave? What might a competitor do to take people away from you? Has this happened before?

Brand recognition? Lead generation? Brand consideration? Direct sales?

Make a list of possible marketing paths you could take. The more you look, the longer the list will be. You want to evaluate as many options as possible.

"The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends spending 7 to 8 percent of your gross revenue for marketing and advertising if you're doing less than $5 million a year in sales and your net profit margin — after all expenses — is in the 10 percent to 12 percent range"

Can you make more time? Can you commit an hour per day? Your weekends? Try to create a consistent schedule for marketing.

People in similar industries that have a similar customer base. These are very important relationships to keep for referrals.

What percentage of people that see or interact with your current marketing efforts become leads or customers? This is an important statistic to track for online marketing.

How many can you handle before you need to change your business?

This doesn’t necessarily have to be through marketing. It could be referrals, word of mouth or something you have little control over.

Is it your marketing agency? The internet? A trusted industry journal? Who will you turn to to make sure you’re doing the correct thing? This could be multiple sources.

Very few people would LIKE cold calling to work. It’s unpleasant. On the flip side many people want Facebook marketing to work because it’s fun and fosters relationships. What marketing would you feel best doing?

Marketing efforts like Adwords or door to door sales require learning and perfecting new skills. It’s important to be aware of exactly what you need to learn.

Are you appealing to customers fears? Or are you offering them a better experience than they’re currently having? Security systems use negative marketing, a pizza restaurant will market positively.

When does marketing end and sales begin? This could be when you first make contact with customers after they fill out a contact form, or after you’ve showed them your marketing materials.

A new marketing strategy will often have an initial startup cost. This could be different from person to person and it’s worth shopping around.

Is there a monthly fee? Is the cost depending on how many leads you receive? What will it cost to market on a regular bases.

One of the most important questions. If you have chosen a marketing method that you don’t have time for you will probably need to outsource.

This is how you measure the success of your marketing campaign or materials. ‘More sales’ is often too simple and broad a measurement so we use KPIs like: Returning visitors Brand awareness Return on investment Web traffic sources Total website visits Customer attrition Conversion Rate Average Time on page Content downloads Likes, comments, shares

What method or program will you use to track and evaluate your marketing efforts? For a website this would probably be Google Analytics. Platforms like facebook have your analytics as part of the interface.

What do you hope to achieve with your new marketing efforts?

Fail fast is a Silicon Valley saying that suggests we should test new ideas as fast as possible to find the best course, but this isn’t always the best advice. Often we will not know if a marketing effort will be successful until after several weeks or even months.

What time frame will we give our chosen marketing method before we know if it’s successful or not? Will be be checking in often?

How much money would you pay for a lead? You could think of this as a percentage of the sale if you want.

Will you continue if it doesn’t meet your expectations?