Audit

Audit and review

It's important to always look back and learn. The promotional budget should be spent like it is your money - and you know you wouldn't invest your hard earned without a little research and reference to what worked best for you previously... 

Learn from the past
For the majority of your marketing activity, you are largely repeating prior activity. However, it's a sad fact that most campaigns are undertaken with little or not enough reference to previous results.

When you're constructing a new campaign, it's important to understand exactly what has worked previously, and what could have gone better. Don't let the failure to reach objectives see you shelve the idea, or give up on a tactic. Often it can be poor execution and/or contributing factors at play and robust measurement can play a key part in future success.

Walk in your customers shoes
It's not only important to crunch the numbers, make sure you look through the activity in your customers eyes. What did they see? Was the process simple? Did they get consistent messaging? Just a sample of the key questions you need to answer as you look to constantly review your approach.

To do this effectively, it is important to use an independent person not involved in the development of process and promotional materials. This brings true objectivity to the review - removing emotion and bias.