Download Testing Your Marketing Plan - The Manufacturing Institute

Testing Your Marketing Plan (Focus Groups)
Prior to launching a marketing program, you may decide to take testing your plan a step further.
This can be done internally through your communications, marketing and public relations
department(s). You may decide to engage external vendors instead to leverage their expertise in
conducting market pre-testing. Actions that can be taken to gain appropriate understanding
include:
 Observing your target population(s) and take notes of what occurs without the influence
of marketing
 Hold behavioral surveys over the phone or in person to have the target identify what
they do, when and for what purpose
 Conduct open-ended and detailed interviews to obtain comprehensive, qualitative
information on topics that may affect underlying motivations
 Host focus groups to give members of your target group the opportunity to talk openly
as a group about any problems you are planning to address
 Survey satisfaction both after exposing a test group to your marketing as well when you
have generated candidates
Pre-testing your campaign with a small group of your target audience can be a helpful step.
This test run allows you to ensure your message has the desired effect while having a safety
net in place. If your message is ineffective for unexpected reasons, this limits the population
of which you have presented a poor company and/or product image. With the findings of your
pretest, you can make changes to ensure your marketing will say what you intend to portray.