SELF ASSESSMENT TIME - Complete your Marketing Return, not just your Tax one
April. The season of the new tax year, and with it comes the review of the income received and payment due. Marketing, with ‘income’ and ‘outgoings’, should also be reviewed. Complete your return!
Hello again - my highly appreciated reader!
After a break from the norm last month (i.e. a Chat with a CMO who is doing the work), I am afraid to say it is only me and my words and thoughts agin today. But it was well received and thanks to Boots’ Pete Markey for his time. What good is chatting marketing principles if you cannot bring it to life with real examples who extol and validate the truisms themselves? Will definitely do that again.
Feeling inspired, I arrive at this coveted new Financial year slot for April.
I usually dedicate it to thinking about annual planning or something re the year ahead. So will stay adjacent to that. Albeit a little more retrospective (which should pay a part in your work anyway). So having just completed my own Self Assessment (for non UK readers, my personal tax return), I actually thought that it is a great time to review.
You see, when you fill out your Self Assessment (SA302) you have to outlay your incomes, from personal and business incomes, salaries, dividends, interest, capital gains, you name it. And based on this, minus any ‘payment on accounts’ or other deductions, you will get your tax position, i.e. a figure spat out that you owe. It can vary year on year and is the most black and white indication of one’s personal financial health for the year. I have an accountant to help me with it of course, because professionals are good for getting things right.
Taxes are everywhere though, not just fiscal. The ancient Stoics knew all about taxes, knowing that most things in life have a tax. 2,000 years ago, Seneca wrote to Lucilius, “All the things which cause complaint or dread are like the taxes of life—things from which, [my dear Lucilius], you should never hope for exemption or seek escape.” Income taxes are not the only taxes you pay in life. They are just the financial form. E.g. the tax on being a professional athlete is injury and a young retirement. The tax on fame - compromised privacy. You get the idea.
So today I want us to think like this for marketing. There are incomes. And I don’t mean as granular as revenue by line, but more in respect of things that add value to you and your business and can be maximised. Investments in your function. More research. Your product. A strategy. Your owned audience. Your earnt media. Marketing is an investment after all. So thinking about this is a good start.
Then parallel to this (in another column if we are talking on a page) think about your 'outgoings’. In a marketing function of course there’s the things that use money, but what about time and resource? Wasted meetings? Internal challenges on product/budgets? External challenges e.g. agencies and suppliers?
See what I did there?
This thinking isn’t about money, but a marketing equivalent. If we were to only go on fiscal wins and profits, it is too far reaching and disparate based on small self employed freelancers versus cash rich SMEs or heavily leveraged corporates, and I know readership of Front of Mind is a true cross section. So thinking in terms of items can be quite helpful and indeed a leveller for the purposes of this.
So I have devised a checklist for you to start this off. Incomings are out of 150, Outgoings out of 70. Bear with…
1. Firstly - look at your ‘Incomings’.
For each one, give yourself a score out of 10. 0 being really bad/not touching on it. 5 being average and 10 is real self actualisation! From these 15 questions, you can therefore feasibly score out of 150..
Departmental funding and business buy-in - a major one for sure. How well funded are you in relation to goals? Do business and marketing outcomes sync?
Product Quality and Innovation - where are you in delivering customer centric products and services, and is there a roadmap of constant R&D?
Clear Value Proposition - are all stakeholders bought into the clear position, USP, the what and why of your product or service, and therefore approach?
Ongoing Market Research - do you encourage frequent understanding of your customers, company and competition to have informed strategy?
Audience and Customer Understanding - how much do you know about your customers and how closely does it truly reflect the end buyer?
Marketing Strategy - Is there a unifying goal or objective for all stakeholders to buy into and ultimately plan against and action?
Brand Strategy & Codes - to what extent are folk clear on what they stand for, the business tone, and the usage of asset level stuff - the codes, colours etc?
Creative or Campaign Platform - from no coherent approach to a fully fledged Compare-the-Meerkat or Golden Arch, how robust is your story to market?
Planning - Is there a clear diarising of moments or events throughout the month, quarter or year that everyone knows about, to prevent misaligned mini tactical fires everywhere?
Execution - across creative and talent. How is it looking? Do you have the in-house resource and capability to deliver it consistently against a plan?
Owned and Earned Assets - from Website and 1st Party Data to organic search rankings, how well do you control the controllables and build your own estate out?
Brand & Media partnerships - from negotiations of added value and traded economies of scale to hand-in-glove alliances, how much have you explored this?
Loyalty & Retention - from no interest or data capture to full eCRM nurture strategy, how big a value to you put on repeat purchase, or at least, preference?
Measurement - are you all connected on the role of each channel / campaign / objective? Is there a north star KPI in line with the strategy?
Technology & AI - assuming varied AI scale from toying to adoption throughout, how connected is your fundamental tech stack? How well are you automating/using APIs for upmost efficiency?
Now convert to a percentage score…
______ / 150 x 100 = __ %
Next, the outgoings
Now we need to subtract the challenges. To reiterate, this isn’t purely financial, but to level set there are relative considerations. This time, a little trickier, we reverse the number, meaning 0 is a neutralised threat/even a positive, and10 being a big challenge.. With 7 areas of consideration, you will get a score out of 70 (lower is better!)
Investment <> cost? - Internal perception and business health, with 0 being an investment and 10 being a cost, where do you think you sit with the board?
Brand perception/performance with audience - compared to last year, are you up or down? 10 being a big drop, 0 being a positive/non-detractor.
Competition/Pricing - how much have external events or other suppliers impacted your bottom line or pricing? 10 being max impact.
Cost of media/ads and sale - How profitable are you overall? in relative terms? 0 being profitable.
Time utility - from light touch checkins to too many meetings - or from automating the basics to manual wastage, where are you at?
External agency/suppliers/freelancers - with 0 being no barrier and 10 being a big concern on their alignment and value with yours, where are you honestly?
Skill gaps - internal or external - how far off do you think you are from everyone just ‘getting it’, from tech stacks to new processes?
Again get to a percentage - ____ / 70 = __%
Your marketing assessment score : Incomings - Outgoings = +%
Working out the percentage score on each, you want to deduct the percentage of outgoings from the incoming, with the goal a positive percentage. 0-40% likely a safe spot, with an action plan needed for the lower scores. Over 40%? Really top stuff! Are you being honest…. Really? Below 0%, which may be more likely than you think, it is a chance to look at lowering the detractors and improving on the incoming steps and fundamentals.
I did it myself recently. In the CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing - of which I am a Fellow member) I retain my Chartered Marketer status through quarterly reflective statements, and I recently did a review of my own plan, to reconcile my focus versus real outcomes. It definitely helps shape this. I just did this very assessment for my business, and it came to 72.7% on the incoming and 42.9% on the outgoing. So final score? I am UP 29.8%. I know there are a couple of glaring areas I need to work on, but overall in a relatively safe spot. With a little time (please) I hope to get it into the green (40%)
I have created a calculator and spreadsheet which will spit out score when you tap in the numbers, giving guidance on the score and colour highlights areas for your focus. I have called it SA101. (again great/awful corollary). If you want it, please reply to this and I will send you a copy, keen to keep it relatively closed circuit!
To Close - it AIN’T scientific, but provokes marketing position thoughts
Of course, this is a (I think creative) concept spurred from the notion of tax and self assessment. This is a bit of fun. Therefore the arbitrary areas denoting one of the 15 incomes or 7 outgoings are listed and are assumed relative weight. The percentage ranges are indicative too. To add to this, there’s the wider rules (macro factors). Like when a government changes tax code or brackets for your financial return, you may have regulatory challenges, marketing data governance, or some president throwing tariffs around affecting economics of trade. So it is worth doing this annually (or similar) to see impact of relative areas.
But there is some real truth in the low scores in particular, and the different areas where you mark yourself down will tell a story. This is aimed at business marketing functions, or (I guess) can be used as a proxy for agencies to scorecard their work for clients where relevant. I am available to help with this and consult and plan to address these challenges - just book a call here or reply to this to explore. Regardless, let me know how you get on, and hopefully, like any planning or review, you can use it to propel your marketing function in 2025/2026. Please, let me know how you get on and welcome any questions. Needless to say, if you share it, please do mention the source!
Happy new (tax) year!
SA
P.S. I really hope you are getting a semblance of value out of this. If so, and you think any other marketer or business owner would, feel free to share/forward this to them. Also, follow me on LinkedIn, personally or on my company page. If you want to discuss anything, you need some marketing advice, or you just want to discuss something I’ve said, drop me a line. Thanks and happy reading/marketing!