Let me assure you no real violence takes place.

Only a few marketing tactics will feel a little hurt.

This exercise is pretty simple and after it you should be clear on where you should be focussing your attention.

This is not a plan, just an exercise you can do at any time to see if you are on track. Of course completing a proper marketing review is best, but this is better than not looking at what you are actioning.

Get a piece of paper

Often I find actually writing something down works better than typing.

Just list all the marketing activities you are doing or are thinking of doing next year.  Then, beside each one  write down what result you are looking for.

For this exercise think of the actions you want your customers to take, such as:

• Buy for the first time
• Buy more often
• Buy more of your products or service

I know the activities are done to support your marketing strategies, but let us just keep it simple for now.

Also you can’t write down vague actions like improve customer relationships. You need to be able to see results for your efforts.

The more vague you are about why you are doing the marketing activities the harder it is to implement them effectively.

Look at the results

Once you have done this what have you found?

Hopefully you will see that the results you want are focussed towards a couple of objectives. If you find they there are activities that are sitting out on their own then this is the time to be ruthless.

For example you may find that getting customers is where your marketing activities are clustered except for a couple that are more suited to getting your customers to buy more often.

Be ruthless

Be ruthless and get rid of them as they will take time and/or money away from the other activities. It can actually be fun in a sort of a way to put a line (red pen works well) through the ones you are getting rid of.  After all they are just clutter that will not help you achieve what you want.

Remember you can also use this throughout the year when you are considering actioning new marketing activities.