The Second Test of a Good Marketing Idea

Testing Ideas

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You have a marketing idea but aren’t sure if it’s any good. This is the second of three critical questions to ask before implementing the idea in your small business.

Maybe you’ve got an idea in mind. But is it a good idea?

Earlier this month I wrote about The First Test of a Good Marketing Idea. It was the first in a three-part series of articles where I’m diving into three critical questions. If you answer these three simple questions, chances are you’ll know exactly which ideas are worth your time, and which ones aren’t.

This process is especially important for small business owners, who have limited time and resources to spend chasing down something that won’t have an immediate and lasting impact on business growth.

The first step is to apply your objectives as a lens through which you filter your ideas. Read more about this critical first step here. If you’ve already done this, you are ready to read on below.

WHAT’S THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF YOUR MARKETING IDEA?

Once you’ve filtered your initial list of ideas based on your marketing objectives, your second step is to evaluate the relative impact of each idea. There are a couple of ways to do this.

You could simply rank the ideas on your list and place them in order from highest potential impact to lowest. Or, if you want to get a bit more analytical, you could assign each idea a score (e.g., from 0 to 10).

Either way, the point is to ask for each idea on the list: Will this idea have a large impact on my business or a small one?

For example, you might think that publishing a book might have a relatively large impact, while posting an extra tweet each week might have a relatively low impact.

Another example: you believe that creating a new lead database will have a more significant impact than rewriting a sales deck.

There’s no right or wrong answer. You have to decide based on your business situation.

Whatever each idea is, you probably already have a decent gut feel for how much it will move the needle. This prioritization exercise keeps you focused on ideas that really matter, guaranteeing that your limited time as a small business owner will be worth it.

“BUT WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE ANY IDEAS YET?”

No worries. In my previous article, you’ll find a list of potential marketing tactics to help generate new ideas.

You can also simply enter your info below to get access to the Tactical Marketing Cheat Sheet. It has a list of tactical options sorted by objective, as well as a list of metrics you can use to determine if your tactics are actually working or not.

It’s a simple one-pager that’s extremely valuable and helpful to keep around.

 

Keep the cheat sheet handy—post it on a corkboard or attach it to your marketing plan. Then keep an eye out for our final post where we outline the third of three questions you need to answer to determine if your marketing idea is worth pursuing.

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