Now is a great time to make marketing plans for 2023. Learn how to create a strategy that will be unique to your business and its goals. Here are some tips for excellent marketing planning!

Identify the Strengths and Weaknesses of the past year

Maybe you made some headway this year in growing your online sales; however, the social media campaign execution was inconsistent and didn’t generate leads or conversions. Now is the time to set goals to leverage and transform those strengths and weaknesses! Begin by identifying the areas of weakness in your business and the growth opportunities.

The Competition

Be aware of your industry landscape. Do you know what your competitors are doing? No? Then find out!  The players in your field will make moves that can impact your business. Did a competitor start offering a service that you are not familiar with? Time to start researching. Ask your customers. Is this new offering something they are interested in? You could reference your Marketing Canvas worksheet if you completed one with Tomo360! If not, download it now. 

Know your customers!

Speaking of customers: know as much as you can about your customers. If you haven’t researched your customers, now may be a good time. You can do an email survey online, your company e-newsletter, or an online survey tool like Google Forms for Business or Survey Monkey. 

Let Customer Insights drive your strategy 

Customer insights should drive important decisions for your product managers, sales, and operations. For example, you may find out that customers aren’t interested in free delivery but would prefer more hands-on help with installation, or the ability to chat with representatives after purchase. The best way to find out is to ask.

First-party data is becoming increasingly important. Connecting directly with your customers creates value for your business. You can start with an email newsletter or invite them to join a list to receive special promotions to capture emails or phone numbers (for a text campaign). You can also use an email list to target audiences in online advertising. 

Explore the idea of securing more customer emails. This will probably be a strategic goal for many businesses in 2023. Some tactics that could support this goal include using an email capture pop-up on your website, offering tempting content for download (in exchange for email), or promoting a subscription to your emails on your social media platforms.

Setting Goals

Now that you know more, it’s time to set some goals. Your goal may be to increase market share by a specific amount, increase revenue in certain areas (or overall), or introduce your organization to a new audience. Next, make sure your marketing budget is reallocated to support your new goals. Now, select the tactics and marketing channels that support your goals.

Did you spend the past year wondering if you should be on TikTok? Review your goals carefully. If you are introducing your business to a younger audience, then yes, TikTok is an excellent platform for connecting with this audience. Another question you could ask is, “Are my customers or potential new customers using this platform?” Choose your tactics wisely. 

For example, we once provided research for a company and found out that 30% of their customers hadn’t purchased because they felt they didn’t know enough about the product. So, the content strategy shifted to include many more informational pieces, accessible videos, and website stories to make learning easy and fun. 

In another example, we used audience insights on Facebook to determine the top interests of customers. We used these interests to guide the content strategy for the social media program. You will see increased audience engagement and customer growth when your content aligns with your customer’s desires. 

Quick Review!

Creating a Strategic Marketing Plan for the year should include:

• Review your strengths and weaknesses, customer insights, and competitor insights to guide and set your goal choices
• Draft goals 
• Select marketing tactics that support your goals
  • Marketing tactics examples: Email marketing, Coupons or rewards programs, social media organic and paid campaigns, digital advertising on location-based platforms, digital advertising on YouTube, public relations, Google search and display campaigns, improved website features, chat, text marketing, and virtual reality customer experiences.
  • Reallocate your marketing budget to support your goals
• Create a schedule for the year, using your tactics throughout the seasons.
• Consider the timing and frequency of each tactic 
• Test new ideas and improve them 
• Roll out your new strategic marketing plan (and goals) to your team and marketing agency!

If you would like to work with us on your marketing strategy for 2023, contact us now! We’d happily walk you through this process step-by-step and help you execute plans in 2023! You’ll love working with us.