A marketing plan carries decisions made at different moments, often against priorities that have since shifted. Before committing more time or budget, it’s worth checking how well those decisions still serve the business.
These five questions can help you decide what deserves continued support, what needs to change and where a closer look would be useful.
1. What has changed in the business that marketing needs to catch up with?
A shift in business priorities can take time to work its way through marketing. You might be pursuing a different customer, putting more emphasis on retention or introducing an offer that changes how people should think about the company.
Look at the work receiving the most time and budget. How clearly does it reflect those changes? If the business is moving towards larger customers, for example, the team may need to revisit its customer stories and measures of success alongside its targeting.
Start with what has changed, then consider what that asks of marketing.
2. Where do our expectations of marketing differ?
It’s possible to agree that marketing should support growth while holding quite different views about what that means in practice.
Ask the people who shape the plan which outcome matters most over the next six months. Have them answer independently before comparing perspectives. If one person expects immediate sales opportunities while another wants to establish the company in a new category, that’s worth discussing before both expectations become commitments.
The conversation should help the team understand how to make choices when those priorities compete.
3. Which results are helping us make decisions?
A report can contain plenty of useful information and still leave the team unsure what to do next. Take a recent result that was considered a success and ask what it helped you learn about the customers or outcomes the business cares about.
For instance, a growing subscriber list is encouraging. Understanding whether it includes the people you need to reach, and whether they’re becoming more interested in your offer, gives that growth more meaning.
If a measure rarely informs a decision, consider what additional context would make it useful.
4. What keeps making good work harder than it needs to be?
Ask the team where progress repeatedly slows down. You may hear about lengthy approvals, gaps in customer knowledge or work that depends on one person who is already stretched.
Follow a recent piece of work through the process and look at where time or clarity was lost. That can help distinguish a need for additional expertise from a problem with how decisions are made or responsibilities are shared.
Understanding the recurring difficulty gives you a clearer brief for the support you need.
5. What would we choose differently if we were planning today?
Give yourselves permission to look at the current plan without assuming every activity needs to continue.
Some commitments will still have a clear role. Others may be valuable at a different scale, or may have served a purpose the business has since moved beyond. Consider what you would protect, adjust or set aside, and what that would allow the team to do.
Make room for work whose contribution takes time to become visible. The useful question is whether you still have a clear reason to invest in it and a sensible way to assess its progress.
Taken together, these questions can reveal where a closer look would help. They also give leaders a more specific starting point for deciding what marketing needs next.
Our 5ve Diagnostics: Marketing Effectiveness Audit explores these questions across five connected lenses, bringing evidence and leadership perspectives into a focused agenda for action.
Drop us a line at hello@5vecollective.com and let’s talk about it.
