5 Steps For Planning Your Marketing Strategy
Can you believe 2021 is almost over?
Now that we are busy supporting our clients in reaching their revenue goals this holiday season, it’s hard to believe that we need to start planning for 2022 - yes already!
Sometimes we can get so busy working IN our business with our clients, that we lose sight of working ON our business. That’s why we feel it’s so important with taking the time to be intention with all of our planning for the next year now. Yes things will come up and plans change, so don’t think of this as a firm “everything must happen on this exact day like this and how this plan says” plan per say! Instead, think of it as creating a blueprint for all of your business decisions next year. Blueprints are important foundational aspects of your business for creating big, beautiful dreams. However, they are also flexible - always ebbing and flowing. That’s YOU! With this blueprint in place, no matter what you will always have a strategy for staying true to your business values.
Now here are 4 steps for planning your next year marketing strategy:
1. Step Back to Step Ahead
Your first step is stepping back to do some big reflections on your year.
What worked really well in your business this year? What didn’t?
Which marketing campaigns did the best? Which didn’t?
Which social channels seemed to propel your business forward? Which didn’t?
Were you intentional about serving your ideal client? In what ways were you able to best serve your clients?
What were your 2021 creative goals and did you meet them? ROI?
Dig deep into the nitty-gritty details. By stepping back to do (sometimes hard) evaluations of your 2021, you can leap ahead into 2022.
2. Create big, lofty, you-can-do-it goals!
Now that you have taken the time to do a 2021 evaluation, you hopefully identified the things that didn’t work and the things that did. Keeping those details in mind is important for making goals within your next year marketing strategy.
For example, if you realized that all of your facebook campaigns did not do well for your business this year, maybe you need to rethink that channel of your marketing moving forward. Will you focus more attention on your Facebook audience and marketing campaigns here, or will you focus more attention on more lucrative channels? Having all of those reflections in mind, it’s time to make goals for your 2022 that your marketing strategy will help make happen.
To do this we recommend thinking of 3-5 measurable goals. Make sure these goals are specific and actionable, so you know what it means to have reached them. And make sure these goals are not totally out-of-reach. For example, I wouldn’t make my goal to get 5K new followers within the next hour, but making that goal over a few months is ambitious but totally doable! Most importantly though, make sure these goals are YOUR goals. Don’t grab onto someone else’s goal or whatever is trendy, or you won’t ever care to reach it. Choose goals that truly make sense for you and feel good for you with how you want to show up in your business moving forward. Grab onto your goal and go all in. Nothing is stopping you.
3. Look at your $$
It’s important to keep these insights and goals in mind when you sit down to create your marketing budget for the next year, as well as these tips:
Focus on channels that are most lucrative to your business, align with your business marketing goals and are where you connect with your ideal client.
Look at hidden costs within channels or perks that you are paying for that you don’t use, that you can stop paying for. Cancel them!
Identify gaps in what you know and what you need to know, then invest your time and money to fill those gaps. Be so intentional about this, your time and money is worth so much!
Do what works best for you and your business - don’t be afraid to change things up or pivot!
4. Look into your ideal client, again!
As much as industries and brands are constantly evolving, so are people! You need to know your client as well as you know the lyrics to BABY by Justin Bieber - yes, that well!
Does your ideal client still love going to yoga and juicing? Are they now entering a new phase of their lives? Are they still shopping mostly in stores or has the pandemic shifted them to now loving online shopping?
Think of your ideal client like a person. Give them a name and a story. Then think of them so intentionally when you create valuable content to grow your business. Design your marketing strategies to target THAT person and you will be speaking to all of your ideal clients.
5. Flip through the calendar!
Now knowing what social channels and marketing strategies work best, your 2022 goals and budget, and knowledge of your ideal client, it’s time to get out your calendar! Look ahead and start checking off these few things:
Hold yourself accountable to those goals you set and make sure to write down when you want to reach them this year. Be specific.
Look ahead on market trends and fads in your industry - we’re talking holidays, big annual online sale days, the world coming out of lockdown and hosting more in-person workshops at your brick and mortar, anything! Make sure to mark down these times of the calendar so you know when you need to potentially have more marketing strategies in place.
Remember these steps to building a game-changing 2022 blueprint for your marketing strategies are flexible, but serve as a foundation for your business values, dreams and goals. You can change it, add things, ebb and flow as you want, but having this in place will make it so much easier to stay true to YOU!
As always, if you are wanting any help with your 2022 marketing strategies we would love to support you with this - let us know here!
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Bonne Media