If you're looking for a way to improve your marketing efforts and see higher levels of success, a one-year marketing plan is the best way to achieve that goal. It's easy to get lost in the weeds as you examine various marketing tactics and try to decide which one best fits the needs of your brand. However, with a comprehensive 12-month marketing strategy, you'll find that you're in a much better position to manage your marketing efforts and increase the return on your investment.
Let's look at the 5 key benefits of an annual marketing plan:
Having a plan is critical to ensuring the success of your marketing campaigns. When you have a plan in place, you can better assess your budget and your resources, which means that you are less likely to have to reevaluate or reallocate mid-year.
You may find that your annual marketing strategy allows you to focus on your overall goals and objectives for the coming year. Instead of creating a series of vague marketing tactics with no method in place for measuring your progress, you should develop an overall strategy that allows you to integrate your cause marketing, social media marketing, radio marketing, video and more, all under one comprehensive umbrella that will help guide you toward your big-picture goals.
Brand consistency is critical for your business because your customers want to see, hear and be presented with a consistent message and style when they connect with your brand. They want to feel confident that you will continue to deliver on their expectations. By developing a 12-month marketing plan, you will find you will be in a better position to maintain the consistency your customers expect. Over time, that can lead to increased trust and loyalty, which translates to higher sales.
Short-term marketing is often inconsistent as you jump from one plan or tactic to the next. You may work with different marketing professionals for each one or lack the brand guidelines needed to establish a consistent message and ensure that you are able to meet all of your goals.
The return on your marketing investment is critical. You need a high enough return to justify the investment you have made. It’s important to generate a significantly higher return than you spent on those initial marketing efforts.
When you're simply using marketing tactics without a guide or a plan, there may not be an end goal for you to attain. That said, you should include a solid understanding of your customer value journey and what you hope to accomplish by utilizing those strategies. You may discover that it's difficult to generate the return on investment you really need, whether you're marketing a home improvement business or a retail store.
A comprehensive marketing plan, on the other hand, can help increase the return on your investment and put you in a better position to shape your marketing choices throughout the coming year in a way that can help you raise profits and accomplish your goals.
Customer engagement is a crucial part of the customer journey as consumers connect with your business and consider whether they want to trust you with their purchases.
With a long-term marketing strategy, you can design an engaging customer journey that takes customers through each stage of the buying process and helps them make comprehensive decisions about their purchasing needs.
Over time, that can mean a stronger relationship with your customers, who are likely to have a higher overall level of trust in your brand. As a result, they will prove more likely to return to you with their future purchase needs.
It's critical, as a business, to understand your place in the market and seek an advantage over your competitors. You should show them why customers should trust your brand compared to your competitors. An annual marketing plan can help you anticipate trends in customer needs and desires as well as identifying potential threats from your competition and opportunities that can help your brand advance in the market.
As a result, you will often find yourself in a better position to capture a comprehensive share of the market. A plan can help you prepare for potential market shifts, allowing your brand to remain competitive even when things don't go according to plan.
Having a 12-month marketing strategy allows businesses to approach their marketing efforts with a long-term view and create a sustainable marketing approach that can drive business growth over time.
Mid-West Family Springfield can help you develop a customized annual marketing strategy that fits the unique needs of your business.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help set you up for success in your market.