As the calendar turns over, the new year is almost here and it’s time to start putting into place your new marketing strategy. It’s your thorough plan of action that will encapsulate all your marketing efforts for the coming year in meeting your goals and objectives. You can only be as successful as your strategy, and that is why it’s crucial to put in the time and efficient research to map out a clear pathway of how you will meet your end-goals of the year in order to be successful.
Revamping your marketing strategy for the new year is the most crucial starting point to taking advantage of all the new opportunities presented for achieving your business’ goals and bringing your vision to life. You can hit the reset button and kickstart your efforts with renewed vigour, a fresh perspective and above all, a well-thought-out plan that will ensure you remain competitive in the market and thrive in the digital landscape.
Reflect on the Past Year
There’s no better indication of where you should be heading with your strategy for the new year than reflecting on the achievements of your previous year. While it doesn’t necessarily mean that your objectives should be any different, there may be a need to take a new direction with meeting them. Identifying your successes, as well as your weak points, can be the best guide in figuring out which campaigns and tactics resonated with your audience, and which were not as appealing or were executed poorly, in order to also figure out if there’s space for improvement.
Data-driven insights are the most ideal for gaining valuable information of what worked and what didn’t. Gathering all your analytics from different platforms, and evaluating your KPIs, such as conversions rates, ROI and customer acquisition cost, can help you determine your next steps. Audience’s feedback and engagement is also a vital part of getting a clear understanding of whether your strategy is working or whether it needs some rethinking.
Set Clear Goals & Objectives
You need to have a clear and refined vision, in order to achieve a realistic timeframe and activations that will make you meet your goals and objectives. Are you looking to raise your reach, maximise your sales or up your engagement? Defining your primary and secondary goal will give you a clear target for your yearly marketing efforts, set out a comprehensive direction of where you should be heading and allow you to have the upper hand by staying motivated.
What you need is SMART goals:
- Specific: Your goals should be as well-defined as possible. Instead of saying you want to maximise your website traffic, attach a specific percentage to that goal to know exactly what you are aiming for.
- Measurable: Metrics will allow you to measure your progress and success in meeting your specific goals. Are things going to plan or should you readjust your marketing efforts?
- Achievable: Make sure your goals are realistic and attainable, given your resources, budget and constraints. Your goals should challenge your past achievements, but should also be within reach.
- Relevant: Your goals should also align with your overall business objectives and be relevant to your mission and branding, in order to choose the right activations for achieving them.
- Timely: Setting a specific timeframe is also crucial for optimising your efforts and meeting your goals.
Competitor Analysis
Assessing your competitors is a must for your marketing strategy. You need to conduct a thorough research to figure out who your main competitors are in the industry, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and what their digital marketing efforts entail. The better understanding you have of what others are doing, the more you’ll be able to make informed decisions about your own marketing strategy, in terms of identifying market opportunities, how to differentiate your brand and what are the best international practices that are working and you should consider implementing in your strategy.
Conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for your brand, as well as your competitors, can help you with identifying where there is space for improvement and where your main focus should be placed on. You can benchmark your own performance and find opportunities where you can innovate, differentiate your products or services, implement new trends and anticipate potential challenges that may show up.
Understand Your Audience
A fundamental aspect of planning your marketing strategy is having a clear understanding of who you are addressing. Your target audience, including their demographic, interests, preferences and background, will dictate how you approach each marketing effort and act as the guiding light in determining how to tailor them.
Understanding your audience gives you the opportunity to become an integral part of their customer journey. The more deep comprehension you have of who they are, the more refined your strategy will be in yielding successful results based on your goals. You can relate to their interests and pain points and personalise your content to enhance their customer experience, which will in return foster loyalty with your brand in establishing long-term relationships that will engage and convert.
It’s vital to pay attention to market segmentation, in order to help you have clearly defined campaigns that will reach the right audience. Developing detailed buyer personas is a great skill in grasping who your brand represents, and having them serve as a reference point for all your marketing efforts.
Digital Marketing Plan
Your strategy should include a thorough digital marketing plan, including anything related to copywriting, design, thematics, social media channels, advertising, etc, that will dictate your reach, engagement and execution for the rest of the year. It’s a great opportunity to set the tactics with which you will achieve your goals digitally, and maintain the consistency and organisation that is required for connecting with your target audience.
Depending on your objectives, you need to figure out which social media platforms and advertising channels are the most effective and suitable for you. Investing in a search engine optimisation plan will also be ideal for optimising your content and search engine results, while email marketing is a successful strategy for implementing personalisation tactics to engage with your audience. Social media remains a much-favoured avenue for reaching consumers, depending on which channels your target audience is most active on, and influencer marketing has proved an equally effective way for promoting products and services in a much more relatable and authentic approach.
Figure out what works best for your marketing strategy and make sure to outline it as descriptively as possible, in order to fully communicate how you plan to execute your brand’s objectives for the coming year.
The new year presents a fresh opportunity for putting all your best practices into place and driving your brand forward. As you prepare your new marketing strategies, it’s crucial to also remain agile, keep your eyes and ears open to the changing winds of the market, and never stir away from your initial goals and objectives. Happy strategizing!