The end of the year is a great time to plan your marketing goals.
As we’re getting closer to the end of the year, we’re also getting closer to a new year of marketing challenges. Some of us are taking the time to reflect upon the successes and failures of this year. Others are keen to see a fresh start with new dreams and ideas.
The end of the year is a great time to take a quick moment to rest. However, that doesn’t mean that we should put our marketing goals on hold. In fact, there’s no better time to plan your marketing resolutions than now.
Don’t worry if this sounds a bit new to you. Here, you can learn the process of planning your marketing resolutions step by step. Get ready for the new year by setting yourself up for success.
Understand the Successes and Failures of 2022
Defining clear and realistic marketing goals for the year ahead can feel challenging. It requires you to take a look at what you've achieved in 2022. In order to be concise about new plans, you have to understand the outcome of your past actions.
Write a List of Past Marketing Campaigns
Making a list of all the marketing campaigns and activities that you ran in 2022 is a great first step. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to group these by month, projects, or something else. The goal is to find every effort related to marketing that has an impact on your business.
Some marketing steps seem to be too small to matter. However, when looking at the greater picture, you might find that they had some rather important consequences. Because of this, it’s better to include everything that comes into your mind at first and filter them out later.
Categorize Your Marketing Efforts
When your list is complete, you can begin to categorize your items. While some of them are obvious successes and failures, some might be somewhere in the middle.
You might have had a marketing campaign with only a few direct sales but with a great impact on brand awareness. Or, your website traffic might have been higher than planned but without any returning visitors.
In cases like these, consider breaking down your actions or campaigns into smaller parts. This makes it easier to differentiate between successes and failures.
Prioritize the Impact of All Actions
If you’re done with the categorization, it’s time to prioritize the items on your list. Try to think of the impact each of your actions had on the current state of your business. If this feels hard, try to assign points to each of them.
Evaluate Your Overall Marketing Performance
Assessing your overall marketing performance is a useful step to find the weak points of your strategy. Further, it allows you to focus on realistic goals that help you achieve your plans for 2023.
Determine Your Marketing Goals for 2023
Now that you’ve reviewed the actions of 2022, you can turn your attention to the future. With the right mindset and a great set of marketing goals, 2023 can be a year to celebrate.
Reflect on Past Actions That Worked
Determining the exact steps to take can be difficult. That’s when our list of successes and failures comes in. Don’t be afraid of relying on your past actions when setting up your new goals. You can learn a lot from both your mistakes and your big moments. Perhaps, all you need is just a little bit of fine-tuning of your previous goals. Or, you might notice that some of your campaigns were unrealistic in the first place.
Start From the Bigger Picture
Another approach you can benefit from is starting from a big, general perspective. Think of your ultimate goal for 2023 and break it into smaller objectives. Ideally, you can get to a point where you have a simple and clear vision for each of your marketing initiatives.
Think in Shorter Periods
Determining your goals for a whole year can feel overwhelming. To avoid that, consider planning for shorter periods instead.
You can start by setting up goals for the first quarter of the year, January, or only for the first week. It’s up to you to decide the length of each period.
What happens in a year is only partially under our control. The benefit of this method is that you can plan different actions for the different outcomes of each period. This way you’ll be more prepared for unlikely scenarios.
Create a Marketing Strategy to Reach Your Goals
Now that you have your goals in mind, it’s time to talk about your marketing strategy. Finding a way to realize your objectives might be the hardest part of planning your year.
Learn From Your Marketing Mistakes
Did you have a marketing strategy for 2022? If yes, you should take time to study it. Note when it worked better and why you made mistakes.
If 2022 has been a successful year for you, you might want to keep your current strategy with some small alterations. However, that’s not always the case. Even with remarkable outcomes in 2022, a new up-to-date strategy can be of use if some major circumstances of your business have changed.
Inspect Your Market
To create an effective marketing strategy for 2023, you should take your time to inspect your market. Think about the customers you want to reach and your marketing budget. Study your competitors and learn from their failures and successes. Look for emerging trends and implement new ideas into your approach.
Develop an understanding of your product and the impact it has on customers. Think about whether you want to increase your prices or your sales rate. Refresh your knowledge of marketing channels like social media and email marketing. Perhaps you can find a new way of reaching even more people.
Talk to an Expert
Coming up with an effective marketing strategy is a risky challenge. Without sufficient expertise, it can easily result in a catastrophe. It takes a lot of time and effort, too.
That’s why it may be best to work with a team of experts, who can tackle this task for you and help you create a powerful marketing strategy for 2023.
Decide How to Track the Success of Each Goal
Planning your marketing strategy for 2023 is just half of the battle. You need to constantly evaluate your actions in order to be successful in the long run. Here are actionable ways to evaluate your strategy throughout the year to garner success.
Find Your Relevant Data
This might seem obvious, but the first step is to find all the data that is relevant to your goals. If you use an analytics software, you can filter your data by months, customers, or objectives. You can also make use of information collected through forms and surveys. Pay attention to website traffic and social media engagement, as these can be huge indicators of success or failure.
Check Your Data Consistently
Tracking your performance is a task you have to perform from time to time. You can decide to check your data monthly, weekly, or even daily. Opt for a period that suits your marketing needs. The most important thing is to be consistent.
Compare and Evaluate
When you’ve collected enough data, you can start to examine it. Compare it to both your previous results and your preset goals. While evaluating data, notice any new trends and unusual customer activities.
Try to adapt any kind of changes to your marketing plan if possible. If you happen to achieve your goals faster than you thought, you may be able to go for even more ambitious objectives.
Sometimes your marketing strategy proves to be unsuccessful in the long run. If this is the case, don’t hesitate to alter it during the year. It’s better to change your plans and start again halfway through the year than to stick to some bad goals for a whole year.
Achieve Your Marketing Goals in 2023
Planning your marketing resolutions for the new year can be a challenging process. You need to understand the successes and failures of 2022, determine your new goals, create a winning strategy, and constantly evaluate your actions.
While you’ve just learned about the major steps of setting up your marketing goals, it’s also important to develop a powerful marketing strategy.
If you want to dive in further, get in touch with our team of experts at Scorpion Small Business today. Let 2023 be a year of success for your business.
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