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99 Marketing Questions
What is Marketing? Well, without marketing all businesses will fail.
You must think through how your business gets to its market, how your
marketplace becomes aware of your business and how to boost sales and
profits. Before you consider the viability of your company it is worth
asking yourself these questions to focus on key marketing issues.
Remember not all of these questions may seem relevant to your business at
first but consider them nevertheless.
1. When you started your business what was your objective? Was it to make
money or build a business?
2. When you first started in this business, how did you attract your first
customers (what process, method or action did you use)?
3. Why did your customers originally buy from you?
4. Why do customers buy from you now? Is it different?
5. What is your current main method of sales and marketing? What percentage
of your business comes from this?
6. What ongoing sales efforts do you personally perform today? What sales
functions did you perform when you started your business?
7. Where do your customers come from specifically? (Geographically and
sector)
8. What do you believe your greatest single competitive advantage?
9. What are you most proud of about your business, product or service?
10. If you had the choice, would you rather attract more new customers or
make more money from your existing customers and why?
11. Describe what your business does completely. (What do you sell, how do
you sell it, and whom you sell it to by industry, commercial category or
specific niche).
12. Do your customers know what your business philosophy is?
13. How have your methods for doing business, or the product or service
lines you market, changed since you started in the business?
14. What is your vision for your business for the next: 6 Months? 3-5 years?
10 years?
15. What is your biggest opportunity to achieve this vision?
16. What is your greatest strength and is it consistent with this
opportunity?
17. What are your sales per employee? Is it above, below or equal to your
industry average and what are the steps you are taking (or going to take) to
improve it?
18. Do you monitor complaints?
19. What is the biggest customer complaint about your company and how does
your company address this problem?
20. Have you ever bought from your competitors to keep track of what they’re
doing right and wrong?
21. Do you actively seek information from experts in your field and other
fields related to yours?
22. When was the last time you introduced a new product or service to your
market (both existing and prospects), how well did it work, and what was the
reason?
23. What is your target market and how did you arrive at it?
24. What is your Unique Selling Proposition or USP (why do your customers
buy from you – what is it about your product and/or service that
distinguishes your from your competition)? You may have more then one for
different product/service lines or segments of your business.
25. Is your USP a consistent theme in all of marketing and sales efforts? If
yes, how, and if no why not?
26. Briefly describe your marketing mix (all the different types of
marketing you do and how they interrelate – i.e.; Yellow Pages, Internet,
advertisements, direct mail, direct sales, telemarketing, corporate
hospitality etc.)
27. Who are your biggest competitors and what do they offer that you do not?
28. Why do people buy from you instead?
29. What are your competitor’s biggest failing and how do you specifically
exploit that?
30. Do you use direct response marketing concepts (those designed to induce
an immediate and measurable response)? If no, why not?
31. How much of your time each month do you devote to marketing?
32. Do you have a marketing manager or director? If so, describe his/her
primary responsibilities and duties?
33. What is the size of your overall market and your current share of that
market?
34. What are the ways you have retained your existing customers?
35. What does it cost you to get a new customer? (e.g. If you ran an
advertisement that cost £1000.00 and you gained two new customers it would
be £500.00)
36. What are the average sales and profits generated from a new customer in
the first year and how is that information useful in your overall marketing
strategy?
37. What is your biggest and best source of new business and are you doing
everything possible to secure this business? If the answer is no, why not?
38. What has been your biggest marketing success to date (defined as a
specific promotion, advertising campaign, telemarketing script, trade show
etc)
39. What is your biggest marketing problem or challenge today?
40. Does your business market locally, regionally nationally or
internationally now, and what change is required to satisfy your projected
vision of your business?
41. After the initial sale, are there systematic, formal methods you use to
communicate and resell your customers? If so what are they? If not, should
there be? How do gauge customer satisfaction?
42. Do you have a system for selling your own or others products to existing
customers? How does it work?
43. If you had as much money as you wanted, what would you do to improve
your marketing (i.e.: what is your biggest marketing problem or challenge
today)?
44. If you had as much money as you wanted, what would you do to improve
your product or service and what impact would that have on your customers?
45. Do you have a written marketing plan that you adhere to?
46. Is the plan based on a fixed budget or is it a variable percentage of
sales?
47. What do your customers really want (be specific, don’t just answer a
quality product or service)? How do you know?
48. Why do customers buy from you? Do they buy from you exclusively or do
they also patronise your competitors? What steps can you take to get the
main portion of their business?
49. What problem does your product or service solve for the customer?
Describe your customer’s needs and the positive results your product/service
provides?
50. Do you have an adequate supply of customer testimonials and is there a
system in place for their collection? How do you use them in your marketing?
51. Do you talk to your customers? Do you listen?
52. Is your in-bound telephone operation well trained to close and increase
the average order?
53. Do you have a system to actively solicit referral business? If so how
does it work, and if not, why not?
54. Have you ever tried to reactivate your former customers and
non-converted prospects? If not why not?
55. Do you make consistent efforts to communicate with and educate your
customers about what your company is doing to help them? How formal,
informal, or systematic is this process?
56. In what ways do you try to up-sell and/or cross-sell your customers?
57. Are there additional products/services you could be selling to existing
customers but aren’t?
58. Does 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers? What are the
implications of what you’ve discovered? Should you not just concentrate on
that 20%
59. Do you talk to your customers yourself?
60. What kind of guarantee or warranty do you give your customers and how
does it compare with your competitors or with the industry at large?
61. How do you capture the names, addresses and phone numbers of all your
customers and prospects? Do you use this data to plan your marketing
programmes?
62. What is your customer attrition rate? Is it normal? If it’s too high,
what do you think is the reason? If is lower than average why? How can your
customer attrition rate be improved?
63. Do your contact your customers frequently with propositions or offers?
If so, describe this process.
64. Briefly describe the niche you fill in the market and in the customers
mind. Are they the same?
65. What is your advertising philosophy? What influenced or forged your
thoughts on this and describe how you embody it into your ads, or don’t you?
66. Do you use direct response advertising (ads that cause a customer to
take action, as opposed to "image" advertising)? If yes, please describe the
essence of the offer or proposition you typically make. If not, why not?
67. Are your ads working? How do you know? Are the ads instantly
recognisable as yours?
68. What’s your conversion ratio (in other words, out of every x leads you
get y customers or sales) and what are the different techniques you have
used to measure and improve it?
69. What is your advertising cost per sale?
70. Have you tested different approaches to increase this number?
71. Do you test different aspects of your advertising? What do you test?
(copy, offer, price, illustrations, media, headline, size, position in
publication)
72. What is the most consistent way you attract customers to your company?
73. How much do you spend to bring in a new customer?
74. How much is the initial sale worth?
75. How much prospecting mail do you drop each month? To whom, and why?
76. Do you use a list broker? If not, where do you get your names from?
77. How could you use non-competing companies who sell complimentary
products/services? (i.e.: a carpet cleaner approaching a carpeting company)
78. Do you test different aspects of your mailings? What do you test? (Copy,
offer, price, illustrations, list, headline, size, position in publication)
79. What is the return on investment for your mailings and how do you think
it can be improved?
80. How often do you mail to your own list of customers?
81. How often does a typical customer buy from you? How can that be
improved?
82. Do you rent out your customer and/or prospect lists?
83. Have you ever used telemarketing as a follow-up to a direct mailing? If
yes, what is it’s effectiveness and if no, why not?
84. How is your sales force compensated?
85. Have you tried different types of compensation programs? What was their
effect on sales?
86. If you use another direct sales form (independent sales reps, dealers)
have you ever compared the results to an inside or outside sales force?
87. Do you have a sales manager? What are his/her duties and objectives and
how do they fit in with the overall marketing strategy?
88. What is your gross and net income per salesperson? What methods can you
use to improve it?
89. How much time do you personally devote to sales or salespeople?
90. What is your average order amount and what are the steps you can take to
increase it?
91. Do you do anything at the point of sale to increase the order or add on
other products (upsell) and if so what?
92. How much professional sales training have you had and what type of
training do you offer your sales people?
93. How long do you take to fill an order after you receive it, and if you
improved it would it have a dramatic effect on your sales?
94. Is buyer’s remorse a problem for you and if so, how do you overcome it?
95. Do your customers feel your customer service department is prompt and
courteous?
96. What type of training do you offer your service personnel?
97. Do your vendors have a direct financial interest in your growth and
ultimate success?
98. Have you gone to your vendors in the past for financial support,
advertising assistance, etc? If yes, describe.
99. How do you use a public relations strategy to complement your marketing?
Now that you have read this we hope that you recognise just how important
marketing can be to your business.
Interestingly in our experience sales and marketing are often the first
items of expenditure that are cut when a business is under pressure. Having
read this do you think that is correct? Most people (including your
competitors) spend so much time working in their businesses that they never
take the time to work on their businesses.
Read the above print it off and answer the questions. Take this test and see
if helps in your turnaround or rescue strategy
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