For many of us July is the start of a new financial year, and the chance to celebrate another years survival.  It’s also a good time to take stock and do some planning.  So, once you’ve got over the boring bits of sorting out your paper work and made a trip to the accountant it’s a good time to review your financials and have a look at what you need to focus on with growth and marketing for the next financial year.

Open up your accounting software and instead of just looking at the bottom line get ready to have a rummage around and dig deep into the figures.  If you don’t have accounting software you can still do this exercise with your accounts books, a calculator and a bit of patience.

So what should you be looking at? Well the obvious things like revenue, gross profit and profit to see how you are tracking overall.  But don’t stop there:

 Take a look revenue by month and season, so you can plan for downturns or make sure your marketing goes out at the best possible time to increase revenue.  For instance if you run a B&B in a seaside town that is miserable in winter, there is no point in promoting in the middle of winter because it’s too wet and windy. However, you might be able to build up the shoulder period in September/October with some clever advertising. Or maybe you need to capitalise on peak times to ensure maximum occupancy at top dollar.

 Check out revenue and profit per market segment, visitor group or referral source.  Are you too reliant on one or two groups or referrers?  Do you need to diversify? Which market should you target next year?  Have there been changes in the marketplace such as new touring route or major attraction that might mean one market segment will be more interested in visiting your area in the upcoming financial year.

 What about the average spend per market segment?  You might be working just as hard to get a visitor who spends $80 as one who spends $400. 

 Look at average spend or revenue by post code or geographic area, which can give you some clues as to where to spend your marketing dollar.  If one area tends to spend more and be more responsive then spend a higher percentage of your advertising dollar with them

It will only take you a couple of hours to work through this exercise, and who knows you could discover new opportunities to grow your business more cost effectively in the next twelve months!

About the Author
Linda Hailey is a leading business consultant and presenter specialising in strategic planning and marketing for small business. She is the author of Kickstart Marketing, the no-nonsense system for boosting your small business. To find out more about Kickstart Marketing go to  www.lindahailey.com.au  

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