Marketing consultancy

'Sooner or later everyone has a marketing problem'. Glib but true. If you are to grow profits there is a finite limit to the amount you can cut costs or increase prices. That’s when marketing kicks in. Marketing consultancy is about solving marketing problems, so there is no one ready made solution.

       At its core are the three stages summed up in our strap line: we research, we plan, we implement. It is process driven.

       We research to produce an audit of your marketing activities; we plan to produce a route map of where we are going. And we will implement if you want us to do it. This is increasingly attractive to as you can have all the benefits of a full scale marketing function for about 20% of the cost of doing it yourself.

       Marketing Assistance Ltd can brings to bear years of marketing consultancy experience gleaned from all types of industry and commerce (OK, not finance, not primary industries and we don't often tackle consumer marketing!).

 

Marketing consultancy 1 - the marketing audit

The first step is a marketing audit of the capability of the organisation and the market conditions in which it operates. A marketing audit is not as precise as a financial audit but it provides a similar snapshot to answer the question: "where are we now?".

A good marketing audit provides the basic buidling blocks for the marketing plan. See below for more detail.

Marketing consultancy 2 - marketing planning

We work with companies to develop realistic marketing plans which will help them achieve both short and longer term objectives. It will consider all elements of the marketing mix from research through to promotional activity and provides step-by-step ‘milestones’ to help monitor progress. It provides a road map for the company guiding it towards its marketing objectives. If your company’s marketing was perfect, what would it look like?
Preparing the marketing plan follows the following stages.

Marketing Audit

Internal product audit – A tactical review of what is happening now including factors critical to the future of the business
External market audit – The structure of the market, where the business comes from, what the customer needs in terms of price, quality and delivery etc, and how the client's product/services measure up. Trends in the market. Competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

SWOT analysisAn analysis of client strengths and weaknesses and market opportunities and threats.

Setting marketing objectives

Clear quantitative objectives for the immediate future (one year), the medium term (3 to 5 years).

Determine the marketing strategy

Assessment and ranking of the strategic options by cost, benefit and risk. Agreement with client as to the strategic priorities.

Drawing up market plan(s)

How the marketing strategy is to be achieved based on a market segmentation approach. Fully timed and costed.

The 5 stage marketing planning tool

Another way to look at it is to use the analogy of a funnel. The width of the funnel indicates that more time is needed at the beginning of the process than later. If you set out your stall properly with a comprehensive marketing audit then it makes the rest of the process far easier to complete. Information is power!

Advertising and promotion

Whilst we are not an advertising agency we can develop advertising and promotion strategies to help you meet your company's development and profitability targets. We research the right promotional channel to make sure you can communicate effectively with customers and potential customers. We consider all opportunities from 'glossy' adverts to state of the art Internet promotion. See also our separate section on web services.