A Maintenance Guide For Your 2023 Marketing Plan
by Steve Slais
The new year is here, and if you are like most small businesses, you have a solid marketing plan in place for 2023. We recommend treating this like a guidebook based on your overarching strategy. Of course, there will be times when you need to make adjustments, additions or both. Your marketing plan is a living entity that should adapt with your business. Here are three ideas to help you get the most from the hard work and thinking you have put into this plan.
Monitor Your Metrics
At Spoke, we believe in creating campaigns that reach prospects and customers during key points in their buyer journeys. These campaigns may include blogs, trade shows, ads, emails, and social posts that lead buyers to your website for more information or to make a purchase. To be successful, however, these campaigns need to effectively connect with your target audience.
Free online tools such as Google Analytics and subscription resources like HubSpot Metrics can help you to track your marketing content in terms of exposure and engagement. This allows you to monitor what parts of your messaging are working best (and what parts are underperforming) so you can maintain momentum or make adjustments.
Implement Quarterly Checkups
The business climate can change quickly. Your marketing plan should account for these variations. Plan to conduct quarterly reviews (or more often if necessary) to ensure that your strategies keep pace with your goals and objectives and are still reaching your audience in ever-changing market conditions.
Continue to monitor the buyer journeys of your customers. Give potential customers every opportunity to access appropriate sales messages when they are learning about your products and services, and, even more importantly, when they are making purchase decisions. Taking fresh, periodic looks at your marketing plan will keep your sales efforts on track.
Trust the Process
While you should monitor your metrics and implement quarterly checkups, don’t rush to make changes to your marketing plan. Strategies take time to implement, and sometimes seeing the desired results requires patience. When in doubt, give your plan time to play out and trust the process.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t make small adjustments to help generate more qualified leads and increase engagement with your prospects. But remember that you and your team put a lot of effort into building a successful plan. Believe in the experience and expertise of your talented group and keep the big picture in mind.
Here’s to a productive and profitable 2023! And please let us know if Spoke can assist with any of your marketing efforts.
Steve Slais is Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Spoke Marketing. Spoke Marketing (www.spokemarketing.com) provides fully-integrated marketing and sales programs that define and activate the customer buyer journey.