Regardless of whether your business operates on a financial or calendar year, entering a new year is a good time as any to revisit your marketing plan. It’s amazing how many businesses develop a marketing plan but end up chucking it in the drawer and never visiting it again. It’s easy to get bogged down with the tactical delivery in marketing and forget about the overarching strategy you might be following to help you achieve your business goals.
Just like you examine your sales funnel on a regular basis it’s equally as important to revisit your marketing plan regularly to make sure you’re on track. If you operate on a financial year and your guilty of doing this for the first half of your year, this is your sign to pull it out of the drawer and revisit it and if you work on a calendar year then let’s make this year different. Set your marketing plan, review it regularly and work towards your business and sales goals.
Your marketing plan should act as your roadmap on helping you achieve your branding and messaging goals for your business as well as help you generate and influence your sales pipeline.
Here are some of the reasons how revisiting your marketing plan can help your business in 2023:
Identify if your marketing goals are still relevant
It’s amazing how much things can change in 6 months or a year. It’s good practice to be revisiting your marketing goals on a regular basis to make sure they align with your business growth and branding goals. If you find your marketing goals are no longer aligning, it’s time to revisit and re-evaluate, if they are still relevant (which, as long as your business hasn’t changed drastically (they should be) it’s a good idea to have a look at your tactics and make sure they are working towards achieving your goals.
It can help you understand where the gaps are
When you or your team are bogged down in tactical delivery of you marketing campaigns or branding efforts, it can be easy to get distracted by the “shiny things” rather than delivering to your plan. Revisiting your marketing plan can either help get you back on track for the remainder of your year or reset your marketing objectives for the year in line with your business goals. Additionally, it can also help you realise areas you may have missed or need some additional expertise in.
It sets the remainder of your year up for success
Having a clear plan in place for the remainder of your year not only helps keep you on track but also but can help you understand what you can actually achieve, in what otherwise might be a busy and distracted year. My advice is to set yourself three goals quarter that you know can be achieved. If your business is more marketing mature then these might be in the form of campaign, nurture stream and automation, if your business is less mature these might be as simple as an email newsletter or a social media schedule.
In conclusion, regardless of the time of year you should be reviewing your marketing strategy on a regular basis can help set your business and marketing goals up to be achieved and make sure you’re identifying your tasks and areas to be help you grow your business.