As any marketer knows, there's always more that you could be doing. New ideas and campaigns are constantly being pitched and considered - so how do you know which ones to focus on?
Prioritizing marketing ideas is key when trying to improve your overall revenue. The Pareto Principle states that 20% of your efforts drive 80% of your revenue so consider where to focus your efforts.
By prioritizing your marketing ideas you can find ways to spend your team's time better, reach more of your target audience, and meet your business and sales goals.
Why do you need you need to prioritize marketing initiatives?
One of the biggest challenges facing marketing teams is limited time and resources. Most marketers learn early on that there is always more work to be done and new marketing ideas are constantly replacing the high-priority campaigns and pressing initiatives that have just been completed. To be successful, teams must manage and allocate their resources to focus on the most important marketing tasks.
By prioritizing marketing ideas, teams can allocate their time, budget, and personnel more effectively, targeting the opportunities with the highest potential for return on investment (ROI). Each company is likely looking at different criteria. For some it might be useful to go for the low-hanging fruit and quick wins, others may find benefits in spending time on high-effort projects.
By prioritizing your efforts you can work more efficiently and align your overall goals, leading to more efficient operations and a greater chance of meeting your business goals. This can help you gain a competitive edge over your rivals, and enhance your market position.
Establish your marketing goals
Implementing marketing initiatives is about more than just jumping on marketing trends. All of your marketing strategies mustalign with your business goals so prioritize ideas that meet these objectives. While creative marketing campaigns can be exciting, they should only be a priority if they support your business objectives.
The first step is to establish clear and achievable SMART marketing goals. Every marketing strategy needs a clear purpose that matches a specific step in the marketing funnel. It's hard to work on a project if you don’t know how it aligns with your company's objectives.
Once you have these goals, it's straightforward to set specific marketing objectives that help your marketing team collaborate effectively.
How to build a prioritization framework
Do this by asking the following::
What resources do you need?
There's little point in starting something if you can't complete it to a high standard. The same applied to marketing initiatives.
Before you start a project you should ensure you have all the tools you need. Without sufficient resources, like budget, time, and an available marketing team, you’ll struggle to effectively tackle a project. Noting what’s available to you before moving forward will increase your likeliness of success. If things are tight, consider shelving initiatives and focus on more achievable projects in the meantime.
How much revenue with the project generate?
ROI is key when it comes to planning strategic goals. Prioritize your marketing based on what will have the biggest impact on your bottom line by weighing up the cost and time vs the projected outcome.
If you prove that your team efforts directly correlate with increased revenue then you'll be much more likely to get support from others in your organization.
What initiative or campaign does this support?
Does this latest project support an ongoing initiative or campaign? If not, then consider the rationale behind it.
It's unrealistic to expect 100% of projects to align with your strategic objectives, but if many projects fall outside these objectives then you will need to reconsider your resource allocation. Why invest time in projects that don't contribute to what your business is trying to achieve?
Have you done this before?
Data-driven decision-making is a crucial part of marketing prioritization. If a previous initiative wasn't successful, you need to understand what went wrong. Identify the specific challenges and obstacles that hindered or led to success.
What were the key factors that led to the shortcomings? Were there issues with planning, execution, resource allocation, or external factors? Examining these aspects can help you learn what to do differently in the future.
How urgent is it?
Some marketing tasks are essential for success, without them your business - and revenue - could take a big hit. For example, if you don't advertise a sale, your customers won't be aware of it meaning fewer purchases and less profit.
Other projects support important tasks but aren't tied to strict deadlines. These are projects that are nice to undertake and despite having benefits, don't directly lead to increased revenue like a rebranding project.
Three prioritization frameworks you can use
Creating your own personalized prioritization framework from scratch comes with many benefits, but it can be time-consuming. Fortunately, there are numerous pre-made prioritization templates that you can use to speed up the process.
There's no right way to go about marketing prioritization. Instead, you need to find the process that’s right for you and your business. Let's take a look at three potential processes that you can use in your organization.
The Weighted Scoring method
Weighted scoring is one of the most popular and effective ways to prioritize marketing ideas. It offers a robust framework for decision-making based on criteria like existing data or market research. This method can address nearly every business need, providing data-driven, reliable decisions.
In weighted scoring, ideas are ranked 1- 10 based on predefined criteria that align with your marketing goals such as:
- Business value criteria: This could be the potential to generate leads and build brand awareness.
- Costs: Will this require a small or large budget?
- Risk: What are the chances of this project succeeding?
- Effort: How much work will be needed to complete this project and meet company objectives?
The weighted score is calculated using this formula:
Weighted Score = (w1 x C1) + (w2 x C2) + ... + (wn x Cn)
"w" is the weight of each criterion, and "C" is the criterion score.
For example: 30% x Lead Generation + 20% x Brand Awareness + 25% x Project Hours + 25% x Costs = Weighted Score
The LICE method
If the weighted method feels too complex there are asimpler methods to consider. The LICE method is great for teams trying to test brand-new marketing channels.
It works with two values and two effort criteria scored either 1-10 or on a T-shirt size scale (S, M, L, XL).
LICE stands for :
- Lead quality: Lead generation is about more than just quantity, you also need to think about quality. Different marketing channels deliver different lead qualities. For example, a demo request is more likely to convert than a gated asset download
- Impact: Your impact score tries to quantify the effects of your actions. For example, a huge PPC campaign will likely have a bigger impact than a single organic social media post
- Cost: It’ challengngto predict the exact cost of marketing initiatives. A 1-10 scale can give you a good estimate so you can prioritize ideas based on your available budget.
- Effort: This refers to all non-monetized costs associated with a project like the number of collaborators or the number of days needed to complete a campaign.
To calculate this score you need to use the below formula:
Lead quality + Impact + Cost + Effort = your LICE Score
The MPM (Market Prioritization Matrix)
Originally developed for SaaS companies, the MPM is a modified version of the GE-McKinset matrix developed by Notion. This framework is ideal for businesses looking to prioritize their target audience based on market attractiveness and competitive aspects.
This matrix has four key components:
- High growth: These are markets with high potential for growth and low competition
- High potential: Markets with high growth but high competition
- Competitive challenge: This refers to markets with low growth potential and high competition
- Not worth it: Markets with both low growth and low competition.
Top tips for marketing prioritization
Involve stakeholders
Ensure that all relevant stakeholders, including Sales, Marketing, Product, and C-suite members, are involved in the prioritization process. Each department will have a different set of needs and goals. Ensuring that you're all on the same page encourages organizational alignment across the board.
This openness secures buy-in and prevents unexpected issues from cropping up in the future.
Utilize data
Leverage data-driven insights to identify high-potential markets, customer needs, and competitive trends. As we said previously, identifying your marketing goals is the first step when you want to prioritize your marketing activities. Data is a powerful tool, and without it, you're making an educated guess which likely won't achieve the results you're after.
Properly utilizing this data helps prioritize markets that are likely to generate revenue and align with the organization's long-term goals.
Assess regularly
Marketing prioritization is not a one-time task, it's an ongoing process. To remain agile and responsive to change, it's important to continuously evaluate and adjust your priorities.
This requires regularly reviewing market conditions, considering customer feedback, and shifting business objectives.
Schedule regular check-ins and updates with key stakeholders to ensure you stay aligned. Tools like dashboards can help you set and manage KPIs track progress and flag areas that need reassessment. This approach helps your business stay ahead of trends and pivot quickly when necessary.
Consider customer feedback
Customer feedback should be the cornerstone of your decision-making process. Engage with your customers through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and social media to gather insights and use this information to guide future decisions.
Feedback from customers can help you discover new opportunities, inform product development, and identify pain points that need addressing. Implementing a systematic approach to collect, analyze, and act on this feedback ensures that your products and service offerings meet customer needs and expectations helping to foster loyalty.
Know your competitors
Keeping an eye on your competitors is critical for strategic planning. Conduct regular SWOT analyses to understand their strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and market positions to help you discover areas where you can gain a competitive edge.
Prioritize initiatives that differentiate your products or services by capitalizing on your unique strengths and addressing gaps in the market. Staying informed about competitor activities allows you to anticipate market shifts and adjust your strategies accordingly.
Be open to new ideas
Exploring potential new markets, customer segments, or product ideas is crucial for growth and innovation. Encourage a culture of innovation within your organization where new ideas are welcomed and evaluated.
Market research, trend analysis, and pilot projects can help test and validate the potential of these opportunities so you can prioritize initiatives that are most likely to create new revenue streams and drive growth.
Know when to stop
Being willing to let go of underperforming products or markets is a key aspect of effective prioritization. Regularly review the performance of all initiatives against set benchmarks and KPIs. Pinpoint areas that consistently fail to meet desired outcomes despite efforts to improve.
Data-driven decisions help you prioritize resources toward more promising opportunities. This might involve discontinuing products, exiting markets, or reallocating resources. This approach helps focus efforts on high-impact areas, maximizing overall business performance and growth potential.
Use the right tools
You must have the right tools to meet your marketing objectives. Even the best ideas need direction, and without the right data your marketing strategy can lack the laser focus it needs to be successful.
Leveraging smart tools like Capsule and Transpond can help you consolidate your customer and marketing data helping you make better informed business decisions and avoid common mistakes. This can ensure consistency across all other projects allowing you to act in the best interest of your organization and customers.
Consider Transpond and Capsule to help you prioritize your marketing
Marketers are constantly juggling new ideas and campaigns, making it crucial that they prioritize effectively. By focusing resources strategically, you can improve revenue, allocate resources, and align with business goals.
Establishing clear marketing objectives and regularly reevaluating priorities based on market conditions, customer feedback, and business objectives helps you maximize your team's time.
But don't go in blind. Make the most of your data with the right tools like CRM and business marketing tools like Capsule and Transpond.
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