With the holiday season quickly approaching, it’s time to start preparing your 2022 strategic marketing plan. The new year is a perfect chance to start fresh, with innovative ideas, new traditions, and creative campaigns. Before you determine what needs to change, what objectives should be established, or what goals you want to meet, take a look at these seven attainable goals to add to your marketing plan for 2022. These key components just might make this one your most successful year yet.
Include Your Team in the Process
It’s essential to involve your team in company decisions, especially the choices that will directly impact them. Whether it’s a financial, communications, or company-wide plan, you don’t need to take on this task alone.
Inviting your team to collaborate with you creates a more collaborative environment. Plus, incorporating your employees in big decision plans builds company trust, morale, camaraderie, and reliability. Everyone brings a new perspective, and it’s critical to engage them.
Construct a SWOT Analysis from 2021
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are essential when planning your next move. Without the deep dive into your previous campaigns and strategies, you’re unable to determine why something was or wasn’t successful. By conducting your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, you’re unveiling endless growth possibilities and positive outcomes.
Here are some examples of each to ask your team:
- Strengths:
- Where do we excel?
- What are our assets?
- What do customers like about us?
- Weaknesses:
- Where are areas of improvement?
- What complaints do we receive from customers, employees, or stakeholders?
- How much debt do we have?
- Opportunities:
- What trends may positively impact our industry?
- Is there a niche that we should be targeting?
- How is the market changing?
- Threats:
- Could specific regulations discount our company?
- What methods have our competitors tried that we have not?
- Where can our weaknesses be exposed?
Review Your Mission and Vision Statements
Everything you do should reflect who you are as a company. Ask your team and yourself questions like, “What do we value? What differentiates us from the competition? Why do we exist?” It can be easy to get lost in trends or follow others but don’t forget about your originality and what makes you stand out from the competition.
Your annual plan should heavily incorporate goals and concepts that demonstrate what makes you, you. When conducting a team meeting, request feedback on what they admire most about the company, why the values are substantial, or where the gaps are to be more purposely filled.
Develop Your 3-5 Year Strategic Plan
While it may seem like overkill, you should always be thinking about what your next step is. (Spoiler alert, your competition is already doing it). Think of your prospective finances, budget, timeline, business size, and more to keep you on track for success.
Brainstorm methods for increasing your revenue, committing to your values, executing SWOT findings, and expanding your goods or services. No goal is too big, and you can always readjust next year!
Make Your Goals and Objectives Clear
Write or type your goals and objectives for each category you’re preparing and have a timeline for each action item. Including Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in your initial planning will help keep you accountable as often as you need, whether that’s month-to-month or quarterly.
Examples in Action:
- Goal: Grow our social media following
- Objective: Increase social media audience by 30% by April 1, 2022
- Goal: Strengthen employee morale
- Objective: Increase employee feedback survey to a 90% average by 2023
- Goal: Expand our client list
- Objective: Increase subscription rate by 60% by June 15, 2022
Establish Metrics for Success
If you do not already have Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google My Business, be sure to implement them! These resources do not cost you anything to configure, and they give you valuable information that can help gain traffic, leads, and revenue.
Don’t forget that surveys are also a fantastic method to gather feedback. Whether your plan is for external or internal communicators, questionnaires are immediate results where you can discover if something new or existing is working or not.
Break Down Your Priorities
In order to drive your results and keep your team more motivated, break down your priorities into annual and quarterly tasks. Your annual tasks are your higher-level, bigger-picture goals that you want to accomplish. Once you develop your yearly milestones, hone in on quarterly projects that will help you attain them. Three quarterly projects are a good rule of thumb to start and work your way from there.
Creating Your Marketing Plan for 2022?
Green Apple Strategy is a full-service marketing agency that connects clients to communications experts, conducts valuable strategies, and delivers quality work. Are you ready to begin your 2022 strategic planning with our team of specialists? Connect with us today to schedule a consultation and start implementing your best year yet.
