It’s that time of year again, the time when you need to do your research and prepare your digital marketing strategy for the upcoming year.
Getting
your digital marketing strategy ready is vital to your success next
year. From new marketing trends to business shifts, you’ll want to
prepare a marketing plan for 2015 before the end of the year so you can
stay ahead of the curve.
Get a head start with your 2015 digital marketing strategy by using this guide.
For
each step, you will be presented with one or two options. Choose the
option that fits your needs depending on where you’re at with your
business – whether you’re just starting out or you’ve had your business
for a few years already.
Let’s get started!
First Step:
Option A: Set business goals
If
you’re just starting out, a successful marketing plan will take more
time to put together. Since you don’t have a lot of information to feed
off of, you’ll have to evaluate your business and marketing strategies
in a different way. But first, you need to set business goals before you
plan your marketing strategy for 2015.
Business goals will help
guide you in the right direction with your marketing plan. For instance,
say you want to build your email list to 3,000 subscribers by the end
of 2015. That main goal will give you an area to focus on.
Make
sure each main goal is pretty specific, so it is actionable. The more
specific a goal is, the better your marketing plan will be.
Think
about each area of your business. Consider if you want to create goals
for these areas and add them to your marketing plan. A few aspects to
consider include:
- Products or services you plan to provide and how you want to market them
- Marketing tools you want to use to help you achieve these goals
- Who you need on your team to help you achieve these goals
- Possible strategies to use for your marketing plan
After figuring out what you want to achieve, you now have the foundation of your marketing plan!
When
you’re starting out and have no information from the previous year to
refer to, everything starts with you. You’re the center of every part of
your business. Once you start planning your marketing strategy for the
next year, clear your head, figure out your main objectives, and work
from there.
Use mind maps
to get your ideas out of your head and organize them. Figure out what
goals to set. Get your marketing strategy mapped out and ready for the
new year.
One thing to note about creating goals: Whatever you
plan to do for your marketing strategy, make sure you focus on how you
can stand out from the crowd. This step most likely will require a lot
of time and research on your part. But to ensure you have an effective
marketing strategy in place for 2015, do what you can now.
Option B: Review your digital marketing plan from 2014
If
you’ve been in business for the past year or so, you have information
to look back on and use as a basis for your marketing strategy in 2015.
Take time to evaluate all that you accomplished regarding digital
marketing in the past year. Here are a few questions for you to ask
yourself and your team as you review the 2014:
- What strategies worked and helped grow your business?
- What were the most effective marketing strategies that helped give your business a boost?
- What are your customers’ feedback to your marketing and advertising efforts?
- Which digital marketing flopped?
- How has your business changed in the last year? Can you adapt your digital marketing strategy for 2015 to support those changes? Are you going to change your business again before or in the beginning of 2015?
- Has your target market changed? Can you plan next year’s strategy by including your new target market? What changes do you need to make to appeal to your new target audience?
- How is your competition doing? Are you keeping up with the competitive pace in your business?
An
assessment of 2014 will help you see where you’re at and where you want
to go with your business. This information is the foundation of your
digital marketing strategy for 2015. Get your team together, and go over
all the details of your marketing strategy for 2014. Make note of
anything you find significant and will aid in your success in 2015.
Second Step:
Option A: Create micro goals and plans for your main objectives
In
the previous step, you came up with the main goals you want to achieve
in 2015. To make them more manageable and easier to accomplish, break
these big goals down into smaller goals or action steps.
Here’s an example of a broken down goal:
Main Marketing Objective: Build email list to 1,000 subscribers by June 2015.
- 1st step: Build landing page for email list, and set up a form for visitors to subscribe to newsletter.
- 2nd step: Have a free product giveaway created to offer as an incentive to prospects.
- 3rd step: Prepare automated emails and set them to send out on certain days.
- 4th step: Come up with more content ideas and use content idea creation tools if necessary. Write content and add to automated email series for newsletter.
- 5th step: Track progress over six months. Track number of subscribers and unsubscribers over the six month period. Continue to improve email marketing strategy until 1,000 subscribers have been reached.
To help you figure out your action steps,
think backwards. Say you already achieved your goal. Trace back and
figure out what you had to do to reach each one of the action steps.
Continue to go backwards until you reach the step you’re at now, which
is setting your goals.
You don’t have to figure out all action
steps right now, though. Trying to do too much at once will cause you to
stress out. If you’re stumped on a step, take a break and come back to
it later. Start coming up with micro plans for your other main goals and
come back to the goal you got stumped on later.
Option B: Improve your digital marketing plan from 2014
You
may be wondering what the point is in improving an outdated marketing
plan, but this step helps you see what would you do differently. With
the knowledge and experience you’ve gained over the past year, you’ll be
able to come up with better, more effective ideas for your 2015
marketing strategy.
Instead of building a marketing plan from
scratch, you already have a foundation for next year’s marketing plan
from last year’s evaluation. For this step, focus on where you would
improve marketing tactics as well as changes in the industry over the
past year.
Once you’ve revised and updated last year’s marketing
plan, make sure you can use the edited plan for next year. Can the
changes and improvements you’ve made be applied to your marketing goals
for 2015? Evaluate this improved marketing plan you’ve created to see if
it fits what you have planned for 2015; you can now start building your
marketing strategy for next year in this step, too.
Third Step: Choose the Right Tools
Whether
you’re experienced or just starting your business journey in 2015,
digital marketing tools are essential to your strategy. Not only do they
maximize your marketing efforts, but they also offer easier and quicker
solutions to any marketing obstacle you stumble upon.
In this
step, you’ll learn various tools to add to your marketing strategy that
will help you achieve your marketing goals faster and more efficiently.
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