Marketing Review

The New Year has well and duly arrived, and it’s time to get back to work. It’s quite understandable to want to throw oneself straight back into the deep end – especially if you have taken a fair amount of time out (quite rightly!) to spend quality time with your family and friends over the festive period – but, once you have sorted out any outstanding issues, responded to important emails and dealt with any immediate panics, the last couple of weeks in January are the perfect time to take a look at your business goals for the year ahead, and to have a good think about whether you need to revise your marketing plans, and the strategies and tactics you need to put in place to deliver them. It’s the perfect time for a marketing review.

Focus on your goals

By setting annual objectives, you are creating a clear direction for your business to head in. A simple way of doing this is to create a list of realistic goals. You can then create secondary aims to achieve each quarter in order to help you to achieve your primary annual goals.

The main advantage of goal-setting is to give your business purpose and direction. Of course, not everything has to be achieved by the end of 2020, but what you achieve this year is always the first step in your longer term plans.

Challenge your mindset

January is a great time to challenge your mindset and think about how you can adjust your attitude to meet your business goals in the coming year.

Mindset is as important as (or even more important than) any other business tool, and can make or break a business. Think about your corporate culture. Does it promote growth in your business? Or has it got some limiting beliefs that are inhibiting the expansion of your company?

There are lots of free seminars to listen to for advice about how to improve your business mindset, and talks by some of the greatest ‘start-ups turned huge empires’ to inspire you into expanding your mission and vision. TED Talks is a great place to start.

Create a marketing plan

Create a list of the most important dates relevant to your business and map them out on a calendar. You can then start planning out the peaks and troughs for your marketing and sales activity.

Where do you want to concentrate most of your marketing budget (think about ROI when planning this) throughout the year, and which seasons offer you the opportunity of a quick win? Once you have a clear vision of your core sales periods throughout the year, it is easier to create a marketing plan. Always keep your primary goals in mind when planning any activities. If the activity is not helping you to achieve your goals, perhaps you shouldn’t be doing it.

Try new things

Taking risks is what business is all about, and trying new things is a great way to learn. Of course, whilst it is great to try new things, it is not sensible to try lots of new things at the same time. This might spread your resources too thin, without getting any clear feedback on what’s working and what isn’t.

So, pick 2-3 new trends for 2020 (check out our ‘Marketing Trends for 2020’ Blog for ideas) and incorporate these strategies into multiple areas of your business. For example, if you choose ‘Using Micro-Influencers’ as a strategy, make sure you are implementing a holistic strategy using micro-influencers across more than one area of your business.

Remember to always stay relevant to your goals. For example, don’t start implementing a virtual reality strategy just because you’ve seen the latest start-up using it. If it’s not relevant to your business and your business goals at this moment in time, don’t do it.

Be aware of the bigger picture

It is always important to stay up to date with the needs of your target audience, including what the current economy is like, what hot topics have been up for debate recently, and what the main challenges are that your audience is facing in the year ahead.

It’s not just a case of keeping your goals and your marketing up to date, but you also need to check in to see if what your business is offering is still relevant to your audience. For example, we have seen a war on plastic straws and single use plastics in 2019, so promoting a product that uses unsustainable materials in 2020 probably isn’t the best idea…

Identify changes in customer behaviour

Technology is evolving at an ever more rapid rate, making things smarter, more streamlined and more efficient all the time. It can be hard to try and keep up with this ever-changing industry. However, January is a great time to take a proper look at your customers and any changes in their purchasing behaviours.

This can vary hugely depending on the industry your business is in; however, there will always be changes that affect your business, and you can use this knowledge when creating your marketing strategy to ensure it is as effective and efficient as possible.

Keep measuring

Once goals are set and your marketing plan has been developed, measuring your successes and failures is key to achieving your goals at the end of the year. Whenever a business is trying a new strategy, it is vital to measure its effectiveness and efficiency. This will give you important feedback to deliver better outcomes in future.

Marketing Consultancy in London

We offer a comprehensive strategic marketing planning service to help SMEs and start-ups to define, implement, deliver and assess their marketing activities.  Our team of talented marketing consultants can help you to create an integrated marketing plan to achieve your marketing goals, along with a detailed breakdown of the necessary marketing strategies and tactics for the best marketing media your business – advertising campaigns, website development, branding, digital marketing, SEO, social media email marketing, events and exhibitions, direct marketing, PR, and so on.

If you are looking for a strategic marketing consultancy in London that can deliver a fully integrated solution that will meet your business plan goals, please email Stephen Taylor-Brown, our Managing Director, at stephen@abacusmarketing.co.uk or call him on 020 3858 7836, to discuss your needs in more detail, or fill in the contact form on our website to set up a meeting. You can find out more about who we are, what we do and who we do it for by taking a look around our website at www.abacusmarketing.co.uk.