Top 7 Reasons Marketers Don't Meet Goals

It's easy for an unplanned action or reaction to derail months of work and capsize what appeared to be a good marketing plan. Setting up all guidelines, including a timeline, as an integral part of your plan can help avoid these disasters.

1. FLYING BLIND
   
   Proceeding without a well-researched premise and a well thought out plan of execution is a direct route to missing your response and revenue projections.
   
   
2. UFO's INSTEAD OF USP's
   
   If you can't identify a Unique Selling Proposition to differentiate you from the rest of the market, reposition your product and create one. Success is much easier if you give your prospects a "reason to buy" your product instead of your competitor's.
   
   
3. DISSING THE COMPETITION
   
   Ignore or disrespect your competition and your clients may ignore or disrespect you. Who, what, where, how often, how many, and how much should play in your mind as a continuous loop that needs constant filling and updating with competitive data.
   
   
4. EXPERTS WITHOUT INPUT
   
   If your research department relies solely on other research departments and doesn't include input from your current clients, you're likely to have a plan based on yesterday's data. Profile a percentage of your clients quarterly and stay ahead of the market.
   
   
5. KNEE JERK REACTIONS
   
   Sound reasoning or emergencies should back up mid-stream 360-degree changes. Good examples are major substantiated miscalculations is planning input (budgets or research data) or production output (sales and mergers, economic collapses and world wars).
   
   
6. FLYING SOLO
   
   If your plans are created without input from sales and operations, you risk a sales staff that doesn't know what they're selling, an operations staff that can't fulfill your advertising promises, and customers who broadcast your poor performance on the Internet.
   
   
7. STEALTH RESULTS
   
   If you don't track and measure program costs, sales, costs of sales, returns, profit, percent of goals met, departmental compliance and performance, or include critiques from marketing, operations and sales, you will be inundated with suggestions for "improvement" based on #4 above.

Submitted by Judie Rappaport, President of Advantage 50 Plus Seminars & Marketing, providing tele-classes, seminars & private consulting for professionals marketing to 50+ targets. Get details about the Marketing Tele-Class, "Rock of Ages, Rock n Roll, or Hard Rock Café", and subscribe to or read the free newsletter Solutions to Selling the 50+ Markets at [http://www.advantage50plus.com].