With just two months left in the year, you’ll want to start planning out your marketing strategy for 2021 if you haven’t already. Prior planning is instrumental in getting all the details down and making sure everything is in place to implement your campaigns come January.
No matter what your business is looking to accomplish with their marketing, these components are a necessity for creating effective campaigns:
Create SMART Goals
The most important part of planning out your marketing strategy for the year is knowing what you want to achieve. Are you trying to establish brand authority, or is lead generation your first priority? Without having clearly defined objectives for your campaigns, all your efforts will be a shot in the dark at increasing revenue.
Each of your goals should be SMART, meaning specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. This mindset will keep you from aiming too high and help determine whether your campaigns are effective in obtaining your goals as you review metrics throughout the year.
Assess Brand Perception
Before you can start rolling out marketing campaigns for the year, you’ll need to understand where your brand currently stands. Aspects such as brand awareness, recognition, and perception of your company should come into play in your marketing efforts. Evaluating the public’s familiarity and general impression of your business will help determine what gaps need filling in campaigns for the upcoming year.
Determine Your Budget
Even if all your efforts take place in-house, marketing costs money. From PPC ads to the tools necessary to roll out your campaigns, growing your business doesn’t come for free. Failing to plan out your marketing budget could result in overspending or loss of overall marketing value. Not only will you need to establish how much of your budget you’re willing to dedicate to marketing, but you also must dictate the amount you’ll put towards individual campaign assets.
Don’t Marry Your Plan
Coming up with a 2021 marketing strategy is only the beginning of your campaign efforts for the upcoming year. Once you’ve started implementing your marketing tactics, you should be regularly assessing data and analytics to measure how effective your campaigns have been thus far. Doing so will allow you to tweak and tailor your strategies to improve your results and ROI.
Agility is key in all business operations, and in the fast-paced world of marketing, this is especially true. With search engines adjusting their algorithms constantly and best practices adapting as new technologies and industry trends come about, staying on top of what’s going on in the world of marketing is vital in seeing continued success.
Need some direction in figuring out where to devote your attention for your 2021 marketing campaigns? Schedule a free marketing assessment with our chief inbound expert today!