As we come towards the end of the financial year for many businesses, now is a great time to start to planning your marketing for the next 3-6 months. Previously, for many, the energy of a new year meant many businesses or business owners would leap into developing a new plan, looking at various changes or new ways of doing things to help drive continual growth. After the past 2 years, many possibly feel that even thinking about something new and different is exhausting enough, let alone taking the time to plan. I’m reading updates from various businesses every day about staff shortages resulting in reduced hours, limiting services and temporary closures so how can you plan for the future when you don’t even know what the rest of today holds?
In marketing, one of the things that we seem to continually do is work months ahead, planning everything out in detail. The need to be doing this doesn’t change no matter the uncertainty in the market and it’s key to ensure that you are not only spending that all important marketing budget effectively, but also planning out your campaign and managing your product and business resources to support them.
But once again, we need to look at the elephant in the room and the outlook for COVID impacts is continuing to play havoc with everyone with the apprehensive feeling being back and “what happens if…” continues to plague our thoughts, especially as we enter the winter months.
So, how do we overcome this…
WE BUILD A PLAN!!
In marketing, I believe that the basis of a good plan is the ability to be flexible. Flexible is not only about responding to external factors such as competitors, political landscape, competitors, but also to be able to stop and start activity as is necessary. A plan is just that, it is a path set to help stay focussed but it doesn’t have to be set in stone. Below are a few thoughts to help build, and react, to your future marketing. It’s not the full list but some of the key ones to help you get started on building a plan just for your business.
- Start with a budget
Know what you have available to spend. You can always do more if things go well but be realistic on what you can afford - Define your audience
Understanding who you’re talking to will help you to develop a marketing plan with better ROI as you won’t include channels where your audience is less likely to be. - Do a SWOT
Always good to refresh your Strengths & Weaknesses (internal) and Opportunities & Threats (external) to help you plan any business decision / spend - Write your key objectives
Knowing what you want to achieve out of your marketing is so important. This might be sales or it could be building brand awareness, depending on the different stage for your business. - Identify your key marketing channels
There are so many choices so how do you choose? It’s simple, looking at what you’ve determined for each of the above will help narrow down choices of what channels you should be using. Don’t forget to also consider resource requirements for your channels – you need to run a business so don’t want to spend all your time building your individual campaigns. - Identify your key season
All businesses have a potential key season, or more. Make sure that you clearly highlight what and when these are. Depending on your business type and the season, you may want to plan marketing before or during this season to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your marketing.
So, the list isn’t endless and it’s just a few ideas to help you get started. Remember, make sure that you work with people to help bring your plan to life and only plan to do what you can realistically achieve. Small businesses don’t have limitless resources, many of them only having 1 or 2 that need to not only run the business but help it grow.
Good Luck and take care.
The Marketing Elf
©June 2022
The Marketing Elf 