By checking in either monthly or quarterly, you can ensure that those responsible take the time necessary to follow through on your marketing plan.
In Zweig Group’s 2019 Marketing Survey, 70 percent of firms answered that they have a formal marketing plan. Marketing plans typically include a firm-wide marketing budget, revenue/sales goals, contact goals, and/or goals by market sector or office division.
Putting together a marketing plan is only half the strategy. You can’t just put your plan on the shelf and revisit it again at the end of the year to update. As marketers, we have a lot on our plates, but it’s important to allocate the time to review our plans throughout the year. By scheduling follow-ups either monthly or quarterly, you can help ensure that those responsible take the time necessary to revisit your plan.
To be productive in your review, here are a few questions you should ask yourself:
- Which goals, if any, did you not meet? Why? Should they be a priority in Q2 and beyond, or should you eliminate them from your plan? It’s important to understand the “why” behind not meeting all your goals. This will help set you up for a successful remainder of the year. Perhaps you changed your approach based on trends you were seeing within the industry, how does this affect other aspects of your plan?
- Is there anything you need to add to your plan based on requests from colleagues? While you want to use your marketing plan to drive strategy, there may be something unforeseen, such as an emerging technology that you might want to introduce during the remainder of the year.
- Has your target market changed? And if so, what adjustments to your strategy do you need to make based on these changes? Even a small change to your audience can alter how you approach your marketing goals.
- If you made any changes to your brand/messaging, review your image across your web presence. Do you project the same image and message across all platforms? Your firm voice should be consistent whether you’re on your website or on social media channels.
- Which activities were successful? Have you tracked revenue or other ROI metrics to determine which activities should be prioritized for the remainder of the year and which should be revised or even dropped?
Your review shouldn’t stop at just reading through your plan, be sure to make any necessary edits and updates whether to the plan itself, marketing collateral, or your overall strategy to take advantage of understanding what is working for you so far and what is not. This will ensure you continue to have success implementing your plan each quarter throughout the year.
Katie Crawford is Pennoni’s marketing manager. She can be reached at kcrawford@pennoni.com.
