Creating An End of Year Marketing Plan for a Wildly Successful 2022

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Thinking About Your 2022 Marketing Plan?

These seven steps will guide you in creating a marketing strategy that will help reach your goals quickly through deliberate, massive action. We'll also share three digital marketing ideas that will help you stay ahead of your competition. Let's get going!

It's Just Around the Corner
Digital - Keep Up with the Pace of Change
Privacy - Respect Customers' Data Choices
Sustainability - Actions Speak Louder
Growth Is Achieved One Step at a Time

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It's Just Around the Corner

January 1st, 2022 is only a matter of days, believe it or not. If you haven't already done so, you have some time left to plan your next year's marketing strategy as we are nearing the end of Q4.

Brands of all sizes have had a wild year in 2021 with challenges like:

Supply chain issues
Remote work
Low consumer trust

And, these factors have made it difficult to grow a business, regardless of how established you are, the size of your budget, or the industry advantage(s) you possess.

With that said, you can still use what you have learned about conducting business during a pandemic to design a solid marketing plan for next year.

Not sure where to start this process? The seven steps below will get you on the path to achieving your goals quickly.

1. Review Your Current Year's Plan First

Did you have a written marketing plan this year? Take it apart and conduct a group review of it.

This year isn't over yet, but you should have some useful information from Q1, Q2, and Q3 to make sound decisions.

What was your greatest achievement?
Which efforts produced the best bang for your advertising buck?
What didn't perform as expected?
Are you achieving your goals set at the beginning of the year?

It's always smart to look at what you have already done in marketing. It can save you time and money by focusing efforts on more successful channels and avoid wasting budget.

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2. Review (or Perform) Your SWOT Analysis

Your SWOT analysis will change yearly or quarterly. So, in your 2022 marketing plan, be sure to include an updated SWOT analysis.

This will allow you to fine tune your approaches by leveraging the shifts - both inside and outside of your business - that occurred in the past 10 to 12 months.

Again, change is an ongoing process in your industry - as well as with your audience - so make sure you are always watching for subtle shifts in market and consumer behavior that could impact your business.

3. Define (Or Redefine) Your Audience In Greater Detail

Your audience should be the focus of your marketing efforts. If you haven’t done so already, create detailed buyer personas to define your audience.

Even if your buyer personas are already in place, this exercise can be used to help you refine them and maybe add others you have discovered.

People change with time and exposure to the marketplace. It's highly possible your current personas are evolving as well. This makes keeping close tabs on your personas a must.

Pay attention to the customer journey of each persona. Where are those personas interacting with your brand - both online and offline?

You can optimize your marketing strategies by sticking with the most successful channels. You can try new channels, but always base your tests on facts to ensure you're not wasting your budget. If you want to market on TikTok, but if your audience isn’t there, this is a bad idea.

Paid interviews with your most loyal customers is always a good idea when you need more information about your audience.

It's amazing what insights you can gain from speaking directly to your audience.

4. Set SMART Goals and KPIs

When finished reviewing your marketing plan for the current year, learning more about your audience, and conducting a SWOT analysis, it's time to set your goals for the upcoming 12 months.

Instead of picking a nebulous goal such as "I want more customers", set SMART goals. This will help you understand how successful your marketing team was at executing the tactics chosen.

Key performance indicators (KPIs), should be set for each goal on a team or individual basis.

KPIs are metrics that serve your SMART goals. They hold your team responsible over the next year.

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5. Choose Your Marketing Tactics

So, which marketing efforts will help you achieve your SMART goals? What tactics can you employ to achieve that 30% increase of brand awareness by August next year?

Only you know the best tactics for your brand. To give you an idea where to begin, you could try these proven methods:

Search engine optimization
Content marketing
Public relations
Organic social media
Paid social media
Video marketing
Email campaigns
Google Ads
Influencer marketing
Referral strategies
Joint ventures
Brand partnerships
Endorsement campaigns
Etc.

There are several methods you could implement to achieve your goal. Your next job is to zero in on the ones that will move the needle the most for a brand in your industry.

6. Plan Your Budget

Without knowing how much you spent on marketing, you can't measure your ROI (return on investment).

It is important to have a budget for each channel or tactic, as well as an annual spending figure.

A 2022 marketing budget should be established. It's important to allocate that money into predetermined marketing efforts so you can see where your money is going.

For example, if you have $20,000 annually in your budget, you could allocate $12,000 for social media and $8,000 for public relations.

Your budget should be even more segmented if you use more marketing channels and tactics. Just make sure that before you spend, you've done your analysis and planning.

Businesses often have to decide which tactics they should budget for based on an estimated return on investment. Your budget size will determine how much you can experiment with new strategies. And, the smaller your budget, the more you need to focus on proven tactics.

7. Make Accountability a Company Policy

You've likely already written down your marketing plan. And that's great, but a Google Doc doesn't offer the same level of accountability as project management software.

You can use PM software such as Jira, Asana, or Trello to really implement your marketing plan. This is the best way for your team to plan out their work... then follow the marketing plan.

It simplifies everything from the initial planning to execution to reporting and measurement of each major step.

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Make Change a Part of the Plan

Your marketing plans can become obsolete overnight, as we saw with 2021 and 2020.

It's okay to change your plan as the world goes through shifts in culture, politics, climate, etc.

Companies that are successful in business exhibit flexibility and are nimble enough to change direction in times of uncertainty.

The seven steps above will help you create a solid marketing plan that you can use for the next year - but also maintain the option for pivoting if needed.

Speaking of adopting change as a habit in your business, here are some insights 2021 taught the business world, and some recommendations for you to consider.

The pandemic will continue to have unexpected effects on brands, but there are still some important topics that marketers need to be thinking about.

Digital Marketing is no longer a choice in business
Privacy as a strong policy, and
Sustainability.

These areas can be difficult to navigate. However, we have gathered some insights to help you get started with your marketing strategy.

Digital: Accelerate Your Learning to Keep Up with the Pace of Change

The transition to digital - by businesses and consumers - was accelerated by the pandemic.

To keep up with the changing expectations and needs of online-savvy consumers, businesses had to change their operations (and cultures) significantly.

Digital is the new norm, and it will continue to evolve in that direction. Digital marketing transformation will be a top priority for businesses in 2022.

However, don't let the enormity of the changes required hinder you from adopting digital methods of providing better service and clearer, more personalized marketing messages.

Start small, and increase the use of technology, automation of processes, and continually educate your human capital. Workers who feel like they are part of creating a better solution for customers and your business can pay off massively.

Just set realistic goals and take each step one at a time. Digital adoption can only be improved with strong support from the C-suite and a focus in areas such as:

First-party data:

Create more value for customers by connecting data sources online and offline.

End-to-end measurement:

Make measurement of your marketing and development efforts a primary focus. If you can't measure something, how can you improve it?

Agility:

Foster an internal culture of rapid, data-driven reaction to changing customer behavior.

Privacy: Respect Customers' Data Choices and Deliver Real Value

Changing privacy regulations and third-party cookie removals have put consumer privacy in the top of mind position for businesses of every size.

The challenge for brands is ongoing compliance with the new developments. Marketers must also continue to build trust with customers and offer a privacy-first, personalized experience. It is imperative to be respectful of people's data choices while delivering real value.

These are the steps to take as you plan your next year's marketing strategy:

Make it relevant:

Experiences that make people feel valued are what they seek.

Make it responsible:

People need to feel comfortable about sharing their personal information with your brand, and not regret it.

Make it trustworthy:

People want to be in control of their data. They should be able review and manage how their information is being used at all times.

Sustainability: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Sustainability is a vast topic. It can be difficult to know how to integrate it into a marketing strategy.

It is important to realize that sustainability efforts must go beyond setting long-term goals and updating your messaging. Concrete actions are needed to make sustainability a part of your internal culture.

Marketers looking for ways to step up as customers place sustainability above most other criteria can consider:

Share positive stories about sustainability at your brand:

Make sure to highlight the positive changes your brand has made. Then, take action in transparent, authentic, and notable ways.
Avoid "greenwashing", which is misleading statements about the sustainability and benefits of products or works. The backlash from customers and your audience could be significant.

Focus on making eco-friendly living easy:

Instead of promoting sustainability as an added bonus, integrate sustainability into your existing brand value proposition - wherever possible.
Integrate sustainability benefits into the brand experience by listing them alongside other key benefits as often as possible.

Reward continuous progress:

Marketers can encourage positive consumer behavior by showing how they constantly contribute to sustainability projects internally and externally.
It will take time and effort to achieve success in privacy, sustainability, and digital adoption. However, the actions you take now and over the next year can elevate your marketing plan.