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Why Your Team Should Review PVM Annually

To stay relevant and keep your marketing working for you, review your current status at least once a year. 

Your marketing roadmap is just that —a plan of action based on two things:

  1.  Where you have determined you stand right now and 
  2. Where you want to go. 

A marketing roadmap is a living document that should keep pace as your goals shift and should account for both short- and long-term objectives. A key part of that roadmap is understanding your business purpose and what you’d like your vision and mission for your company to look like. At least once per year, every business needs to spend some time reviewing their marketing foundation, as well as the tools they’re using to execute their strategy. Involving your team as well as key stakeholders is vital to getting the kind of marketing feedback you’ll need to stay on track…no matter how busy you are throughout the rest of the year.

An assessment of your marketing foundation helps you understand what has worked well and what needs adjustment — it’ll also help you have a better understanding of any critical marketplace changes. If you need to make any changes to your PVM (Purpose, Vision, Mission), now is the time to do that as well.

A Quick Review: What is PVM?

Many entrepreneurs don’t always understand what the difference is between these terms, but understanding and identifying each one is key to making an assessment of your current business strategy. To help clarify, we covered a comprehensive PVM overview in a previous post. Here’s a quick overview:

  1. Your Purpose is the Why of your business. Understanding your purpose shows you know why your business exists and why your product or service is needed by the world.
  2. Your Vision is the What of your marketing roadmap. Using your roadmap, you need to know what the end of the journey will look like.
    • Where do you want to go? 
    • What are the goals of your business? 
  3. The Mission of your business is the How. Now that you know why you are in business and what you want to do, how will you get there?

What else needs to be reviewed on an annual basis?

During an annual review, you’ll also want to make sure to review:

SWOT. SWOT (Superpowers, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis is useful to review every year, as your competitive environment can change. Understanding your competitive advantages can boost your bottom line, so don’t neglect this important step in your assessment.

  • Target Market. Do you know who your ideal customer is? And is that customer still the same one that you identified when you started your business? It’s worth looking at and we’ve got a Target Market worksheet to help you get started.
  • Goals and Objectives. our goals and objectives will be among the most sensitive to a changing business environment. For example, the Covid pandemic has resulted in many businesses moving rapidly to online commerce— something that may have taken far longer to set as a goal previously. 

How Often Should Your PVM Change?

Here’s the short answer: as often as it needs to, but probably not every year.

However, it’s still a great idea to review your PVM each year to ensure your goals are still in sync with your marketing activity. If you are a relatively new small business, you may find that your initial ideas about your PVM could alter slightly or even expand.

But a key to reviewing your PVM each year, along with your marketing roadmap, is focused more on evolution versus drastically changing your PVM or marketing strategy. to evolve For example, you may decide you’d like to focus on building on your current goals, or you may like to expand your audience.

However, one thing is clear: maintaining a successful business means adapting to changes in the marketplace. As technology and customers evolve, your business will need to evolve with them. Remember, an annual review of your marketing foundation and roadmap is a necessary part of maintaining a competitive advantage and improving your bottom line.

If you need a refresher on how to access your small business marketing foundation, head on over to our Discover redMAP page. You can take a free assessment of your own business there as well as schedule a quick call with us if you are stuck on where to go next.Tomato Fish Is An Indianapolis Consulting Company Focused On Helping Small And Midsize Businesses Make Good Strategic Planning Decisions.