In our last post, we covered the importance of creating an annual marketing plan for 2019. Start by thinking big to create your marketing strategy, working from the major components (goals and KPIs) down to the minutiae (the resources you’ll need). Crafting a marketing strategy is a great opportunity to get all of marketing operations invested in next year’s goals before you bring in tactical support from marketing consultants and other subject matter experts (SMEs).
The Nitty-Gritty of Your Annual Marketing Plan
With your marketing goals and strategy set, it’s time to break down how you’ll tackle them.
Start with enumerating the tactics you’ll use to achieve different goals; for example: to acquire new customers. It’s here where you’ll begin refining the various channels your marketing department will use. Will you focus on social media marketing, paid search marketing, or improving your organic SEO through content marketing?
Once you’ve decided on the tactics and channels, you can continue to break those down into actionable steps. These are the bite-sized tasks that can be assigned to individuals. While this may seem like an overzealous level of detail for something that may be a year away, figuring out the resources the strategy requires will help you gauge whether your ambitions are realistic.
Building a Timeline for the Group
After compiling all the goals, strategies, and necessary steps for the year’s marketing activities, it’s time to put them into a timeline or a calendar.
When constructing a timeline, remember these three things (according to Smart Insights):
- Prioritize core projects: Focus on essential actions and cut out any superfluous tasks.
- Be realistic with your due dates: Trying to cram too much in at the same time will hurt the marketing department’s morale.
- Clearly define ownership and workflows: Having everything on the calendar is pointless if no one knows who’s responsible for each aspect of the strategy.
As with good KPIs, a robust timeline will help you track your overall progress as the year goes on. The best way to begin constructing your calendar is to start with the most important deadlines—product launches, conferences, quarterly sales reports—and work backwards from those dates, filling in as you go along.
Ensure You Have the Resources to Make It All Happen
The last step in creating your annual marketing plan is ensuring you’ve got the resources in place based on the budget—including the people and the tools—to make everything you’ve laid out happen.
One area where many companies struggle is the tactical execution. That’s where hiring a marketing consultant like JABR Marketing can mean the difference between your annual marketing plan succeeding or failing.
To learn more about how JABR Marketing can make your marketing operations a smooth-running machine in 2019, contact us today.