ASKING TWENTY MARKETING QUESTIONS
What are the company’s marketing strengths?
What are the company’s marketing weaknesses?
What marketing problems does the company have?
What share of turnover is taken by the largest customers?
How many new customers in the last year?
What are the ratios of numbers of enquiries to numbers of quotations made to numbers of sales made?
What share of the market does their product have? What direction is it moving?
What plans are there for introducing new products?
When did the company last introduce a new product?
How far ahead does the company plan its marketing operations?
Does it employ specialists in its marketing organisation, e.g., market research manager, advertising manager?
What are the targets for the head of marketing or sales in the company?
What use is made of market research techniques?
What regular analyses are made of historical sales information and records?
How are these analyses used in the evaluation and control of marketing effort?
Does the company employ its own sales representatives and/or agents, whether in the UK or elsewhere?
What are the marketing impacts on the company of leaving the EU?
What regular meetings (at any level) are held in the company’s marketing organisation and between marketing and other company (design & production) functions?
What does the company know about the end markets for its products, or those which its products help to serve?
Where does the company plan to be in five years time on an overall turnover and profitability basis? And how does it plan to achieve those goals?