Warning, Warning… Danger Ahead!

Wouldn’t life be easier if you an inbuilt warning system that you are approaching dangerous ground that could harm your business’s growth.

To be successful in marketing your small business you need to be able to read the warning signs so you can take the necessary action and avert the dangers.

Whilst a lot of information is available today it is usually in a number of places and bringing it all together can seem like a huge task.

The good news is that you can set up and run a simple warning system for business and here are a few tips.

Benchmarks

The first step is to look at your information over a few months or whatever time period suits you and break it down so you know what would be the expected results month by month. The key is to identify those indicators that are most important to your business’s health.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

• Sales
• Customer purchasing patterns
• Number of new customers
• Number of referrals
• Website visitors, return visitors, conversions
• If you conduct research or gain feedback, note the key responses especially regarding your key message
• PPC results if using AdWords

Warning signs

After you have set up the benchmarks it is then easy to understand the most important warning signs for your business. They can include:

• Sales are slowly decreasing, or particular products or services reducing in sales
• Declining customer numbers
• Reduced repeat sales
• Less referrals
• Reduced number of new customers
• Reduced visitors, repeat visitors, conversions etc to website

Tracking

Now that you have your benchmarks and warning signs, set up tracking simply by using a simple spreadsheet so that all your key data is in one place. Record weekly and input formulas so you automatically get monthly totals.  Then note the results which are based on your benchmarks and do not forget to record your marketing activities and any results.

If you want to go further, record your time and money spent on your marketing tactic as well as any other activities such as new competitors entering your market. Over time you will see patterns emerging and reognise the signs that you need to take action.

Bonus Tip

Once you get a handle on this, put in your forecasts and objectives as well and don’t forget that as you achieve success raise the level of the benchmarks.

Do you have an early warning sign system for your business?