It’s that time of year again! Time to start planning for 2023!
In this blog, we will discuss some tips for making your digital marketing plan stronger for 2023 and some things to consider when deciding on goals and strategies to utilize going into the new year. We have written about marketing plans previously if you need a quick refresher.
Without further ado, let’s jump into our first piece of advice.
1. Reflection
This should always be the first step when planning out your next year. Businesses need to reflect on how the previous year went. What worked well versus what didn’t and take that into consideration when making plans for the coming year. This is especially pertinent in marketing.
Was there a campaign that did better than others? Can you pinpoint why? If so, take that and use it in the coming year. If there were mistakes you ran into or hiccups along the way, note those and be aware of those in the coming year to watch out for.
2. Brainstorm
The next tip we have for creating a new marketing plan is to brainstorm and write down ideas and concepts that will help you achieve your business's overall goals for the upcoming year. This could look like different sub-goals, campaigns you thought about doing in the past, or creative ideas. There is no right or wrong way to do this.
Make different categories and write down what comes to mind. Categories can be anything, including:
Campaigns you want to run,
Any categories within the industry your company is in, and build strategies around those categories,
Tactics you can use,
Any events you want to have or attend,
Ideas for content.
There are so many more, and again, these categories can be anything you want. Take it and run with it.
3. Keep Budget in Mind
Obviously, we want to accomplish many things, but we must keep in mind the budget we have to work with. Take into consideration things that will cost more money than others and edit portions that may not be as important to your goals. This will be able to narrow down the important goals you want to accomplish and are financially realistic for your company.
4. Competitive Analysis
We discussed competitive analysis in our most recent blog here. This is an important part of creating a successful marketing strategy for any business. It would be helpful if you completed a competitive analysis and SWOT once a year. This will keep you up to date about others in your industry and any opportunities, threats, strengths, and weaknesses you and your competition have. This will help you in planning for the coming year in a major way.
If you’re looking for some help in completing your marketing plan, reach out to us. We would love to help you!
5. Digital Presence Analysis
If you haven’t done an audit of your digital presence, you should! Not only will this audit help you understand which channels are doing better than others, but it will also help you gain insights into what content your target audience responded best to and what they didn’t. This can help in the brainstorming step when thinking of content ideas for the coming year.
When doing this analysis, you can also determine if you need to put more effort into a certain platform than others if it’s gaining more traction. This can also go the other way, if there is a platform that has lost traction and is more work than what it’s worth, maybe it’s time to cut ties or put more effort into it to bring those numbers back up.
This is a great time to really look back on what you have accomplished in the previous year. Be proud of the work that you’ve put in and create some great ideas for next year!
Hopefully, we were able to shed some light on different ways you can prepare your market plan in the coming year. If you would like a more personalized approach, reach out to us and we would love to help! We can give advice on your current situation and offer different ideas you can take into the new year. Even if you would like to use us as a sounding board for your current ideas and get suggestions to make them stronger, we are here to help!
Get excited about 2023 and may the best be yet to come! Happy New Year from the Elemental Plans Family!
Sources
HubSpot Blog, “7 Steps to Create a Complete Marketing Strategy in 2023”, Kayla Carmichael, December 8, 2022, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-strategy, Accessed December 15, 2022
Small Business Marketing Tools, “Developing an Annual Marketing Plan for the New Year”, Diane Seltzer, https://www.sbmarketingtools.com/developing-an-annual-marketing-plan-for-the-new-year/, Accessed December 15, 2022
Wrike, “How to Build Your Next Year’s Marketing Plan”, Brianna Hansen, November 7, 2021, https://www.wrike.com/blog/build-next-years-marketing-plan/, Accessed December 15, 2022