How to Have 2016 Be Your Best Year Ever

With 2016 officially here, it’s a great time to revisit your marketing plan. If you don’t have one, or haven’t reviewed it recently, here are the basics:

The first thing you want to identify is what will success look like in 2016? What specific and measurable objectives would you like your marketing to achieve? Marketing isn’t the end all be all for every objective, so look specifically at the ones that marketing can impact. Some suggestions:

• Gross sales objectives
• New markets to expand into
• New services to offer
• Positive media stories on your company, principals or services
• Number of gross impressions to achieve with your advertising
• New marketing pieces to create
• New ad campaigns
• Ad campaign effectiveness

While not exhaustive, this list gives you a place to start. When looking at your objectives, remember they must be specific and measurable. For instance saying you’d like to make more money, while you could measure it over last year, making $1 more would achieve that objective. A more specific objective would be, increase gross sales by 10% over 2015.

Next, identify which strategies you will utilize to achieve your objectives. Some to consider:

• New Marketing Campaign
• New Marketing Pieces
• Paid Advertising
• Updating Your Website
• Electronic Communications
• Meeting with Your Best Customers to Upsell/Look for New Opportunities
• Public Relations/Earned Media
• Community Service
• Digital Advertising
• Social Media Strategy

Once you pick your strategies, the next part of the plan is which tactics within each strategy. For instance:

For New Marketing Campaign – a tactic might be creating a new campaign slogan or it might be to having your marketing firm put together options. For Paid Advertising – a tactic might be to explore billboard advertising or new online options.

After the strategies and tactics are decided, the next step is assigning budget line items to each. As a place to start, most businesses spend somewhere between 2 and 7 percent of gross sales on overall marketing. If you are a newer company or rolling out a new product or service, that percentage can increase to 10 or even 15 percent.

The last piece, and the most important piece is to create a detailed action plan that correlates with each tactic and strategy. Identify who is accountable for each action, what he/she is doing and by when it will be completed. The action plan should be reviewed at least quarterly and updated, revamped or tweaked as necessary.

Don’t delay. 2016 is going to zip by. Make sure you take the right actions to have 2016 be your most profitable and successful year ever. If you’d like an outside opinion, we’d love to help.

Happy New Year!