Just like everyone makes New Year resolutions, it’s easier to set your brand on a good start if you have a marketing plan for the New Year.
Developing a marketing plan helps you set targets and goals for your brand for the new year, helps your business understand how to get there and sets out how you are going to put your marketing strategy into practice.
First, evaluate how your business did in the previous year.
What strategies worked and didn’t work, which channels brought in the highest ROI, did your messaging really resonate with your intended audience? Etc.
Then analyze changing trends in your industry, changing customer tastes, preferences, problems, challenges etc.
Do your target audience still spend time at the same places they used to, are they still receptive to the same message? Understanding these will help properly position or reposition your brand in the market place.
Set marketing goals for the year in line with your overall business goals.
It could be to increase brand visibility, reach new customers etc.
Whether you’re just doubling down on your marketing efforts for the previous year or setting totally new goals, they should be realistic, measurable and attainable.
Develop marketing strategies and tactics to implement your marketing plan.
Your strategies are only as great as how well they are implemented. It’s important to map out how to creatively achieve these goals, which channels to use, what activities to engage them in and how to communicate with the intended audience in line with your brand’s tone of voice.
Finally, set a marketing budget.
A marketing budget is usually limited or nonexistent in smaller businesses. But even with very limited resources available, identify the channels and strategies that worked best in the previous year, the channels and strategies with the least spend and those with the highest ROI. This will give you a clear idea on where to allocate your limited resources.
Kicking off the year with a well outlined marketing plan will help you set and track your goals and put you on the path to growing your brand this in 2021. Get in touch with us to help you craft a winning strategy that will help you attract potential customers, engage them at the places they spend their time and convert them to loyal customers.
