How to get started on your 2023 marketing plan
How to get started on your 2023 marketing plan and strategy
Watch out; the new year is sneaking up on you…
But that’s okay because we’re here to help you tackle your annual marketing plan!
We’re here to give you an insight into how we are planning ours’s and our client’s 2023 marketing plans. Discussing how to set SMART goals, why SEO is so important when trying to meet your new goals and how social media marketing can help you stand out against local competitors.
2023 is right around the corner, meaning it’s nearly that time again when we should be starting to plan our new marketing goals and strategies that we want to set for the year ahead. It may seem a bit too early, but when you’re looking to create a yearly marketing plan and strategy, it is best to get started as soon as possible to ensure that your ideas and campaigns have the right momentum to help you succeed.
But if you’re struggling, we’ve got six top tips to help you get started on your 2023 marketing plan.
1. Set SMART goals for your 2023 marketing plan
SMART goals are a way for you to create actionable marketing plans to support your company’s long-term objectives, including sales and customer engagement tactics.
Make your new goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. These goals provide a structured guideline for helping your marketing team assess the most effective course of action and establish a clear to-do list so that they know what can be done now to get ahead of the game.
For example, setting a goal to ‘increase your following on socials’ does not give a clear image of your overall aim. But setting goals such as ‘a 20% increase in followers over two months on Instagram’ paints a better picture of what you want to achieve.
When doing this, it is good to ask yourself questions like;
What is working for your business right now? Why did your past projects fall through and how could they be prevented in the future? When do you want these goals to be achieved?
2. Re-evaluate both your target AND current audience
Your target audience will not always remain the same, especially if your business is growing and evolving. So make sure you consider how, when and if your target audience has been changing recently.
Have they become more local? Are they based close to you? Have their interests changed significantly over the past year?
We would need to ask ourselves – is our current audience still mainly Canterbury business? Should we try to broaden our content to appeal to more areas in Kent? How could we do that effectively?
A great way to do this is by joining local networking groups in your area, which we LOVE to do. As a Kent marketing agency, it allows us to connect with like-minded individuals and businesses on a professional and personal level and expand our presence locally.
Some of our favourites are:
- Business Over Breakfast – held at Canterbury Golf Club
- Innovative Networking – held, where we are based, at Canterbury Innovation Centre
3. Get your calendar ready.
Have you considered events as part of your business strategy?
It seems obvious, but sometimes it is something that isn’t considered at all or not until the last minute.
This doesn’t just mean choosing a few dates in your calendar that could be good to celebrate and calling it a day. You should start to plan your business/work events early to ensure you know exactly when you need to get your marketing campaigns ready.
For example – The University of Kent recently held a new business event – The Innovation Hub Kent Tech Fair – and we were able to help them with their action plan and marketing. This event not only helped them to gain traction and a presence in the community but also allowed them to tap into their Kent-based target market for future events too!
Keeping up to date with what is going on over the year will also help you when you’re planning your content. Whether that means keeping track of employee/colleague birthdays or national events and holidays that relate to your industry – these considerations and data can also help you keep on top of your social media marketing and planning too.
4. Create a Social media marketing strategy
A great approach to social media marketing, especially if you are a smaller or more local business, is to try and align yourself with other local businesses. This could be through collaborations, sponsorships or just simply working together on projects.
As a Canterbury marketing agency, we try to ensure that we engage with the local community and the businesses within them, making Canterbury-centred social media content when we can – even if sometimes it is just a photo from a team night out.
Showing your audience where you are and making that clear by tagging local businesses, using specific hashtags such as #CanterburyBusiness and #KentMarketing, or even creating ads/ campaigns specific to your area can help you stand out.
We have been working with our local community and supporting a local Kent business with their marketing through our work with Take Off, our local mental health charity. As part of the marketing strategy that we put together for them, a specific focus was exploring the best ways to create local Kent and Canterbury promotions – as we know how much this could benefit them and achieve their goals.
Click here to find out more about Take Off
5. Consider website changes
When was the last time you updated your website? One thing that often gets overlooked by many businesses, when it comes to their marketing strategy, is their web design.
If you are considering online advertising, then you need to ensure your website will successfully convert your new visitors. Out-of-date information, broken links and poor user experience will mean the visitors you have paid to visit your site will probably ‘bounce’ to another site… usually a competitor.
6. Update your SEO
Getting your website found by your audience and ensuring that your SEO and web design are fit for and accessible to that audience is a necessity!
For example, for us, it is important that we rank high in searches like
‘Kent marketing services’, ‘SEO Canterbury’ and ‘Canterbury branding and design’. Ranking higher than our competitors means that people using these terms are far more likely to click through to our site.
Give it a try – simply Google a few key terms that relate to your business and see how well you rank locally, nationally, and on a broader scale!
7. Ensure you have the proper marketing management available
Possibly the most important tip of them all.
Managing your marketing can be challenging, especially if you are a smaller/medium-sized business with so many other tasks to juggle. Which is why prioritising your marketing management is so important, when planning out your 2023 marketing strategy.
Whether that is through outsourcing or in-house, your marketing managers should be high on your list of priorities this time of year as it gives you a level footing to compete with more prominent players in your field.
Through customer research, creative campaigns, marketing strategies and positive branding, your marketing manager will create the building blocks for your yearly marketing plan and give you an edge over your competitors. This is why it is essential to ensure your marketing management is prioritised when creating your new marketing plan.
Looking for a little extra support here? Why not check our
‘Your Marketing Manager’ service?
But remember, just because these tips and tricks have worked for us and the majority of our clients – that does not mean that they will all work for every business, as every marketing plan and strategy is bespoke to that business, and it all starts with a discovery session.
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