By now, you’ve likely already set goals and made plans for 2019. In fact, you probably already have material at the printer, with the mail service provider, or with your web folks, who are finishing the campaigns and promotions that will soon drop and kick off the new marketing year.
And, odds are good that you made those plans months ago.
Do they still hold water? Have the company’s goals or your marketing goals changed in the past few months? Should they?
It’s easy to focus next year’s activities on current year’s plans, but to truly prepare for the upcoming year, we need to step back and look at the bigger picture:
What are the company’s big objectives for the year?
Are there any major product launches or changes in direction?
What segments of the market will the company focus on?
In an ideal environment, all departments in a company will communicate with one another. But things aren’t always ideal, and sometimes other parts of the company have plans and goals that marketing doesn’t know about—until they need support. Reaching out to department heads now helps curb any surprise needs or budget changes later.
Once you see the bigger picture, you can revisit your marketing goals for the new year. But remember: to be worth anything, goals must be measurable. “To increase brand awareness” alone won’t cut it. “To increase brand awareness by generating more web traffic through helpful blogs, optimized web pages, and social media messages” will.
Your marketing goals should align with the company’s objectives. When they do, it’s time for Step 2…