5 Top Tips to develop your 2024 Marketing Plan
Effective marketing starts with diagnosis
Last week I attended two industry events – that’s, right, TWO, I could almost feel my brain expanding with the sheer volume of information!
Both events were hugely informative – one featured Peter Field updating us on The Long & the Short of it – 10 years on. The second focused on the potential role of AI in research, the risks and opportunities which was all at once terrifying, fascinating, illuminating and made me want to learn a lot more because even our presenters were struggling to keep their material up-to-date, as things are happening so fast in this space, literally in hours and days, as opposed to months and years!
So what has all of this got to do with 2024 Marketing Planning?
Well, it got me thinking, as Marketers, we are typically curious beings, we are open to new ideas and we love to learn. In any given year, we are likely to attend a number of events, watch webinars, listen to podcasts, read articles and that’s just the people who aren’t doing structured training programmes (Mark Ritson’s Mini MBA, anyone?!). But, are we putting the theory into practice?
All too often, particularly at this time of year, annual planning can be driven by Finance deadlines, as opposed to marketers taking the opportunity to step back, review objectives, diagnose last year’s investment and build a plan that will deliver both on your key metrics (revenue, market share, customer penetration etc.) and on long term brand health and business growth.
Don’t be dragged into budget discussions about 2024 before you’ve had time to stop and think. The case for marketing is strong, the data is available. Even McKinsey joined the party last week stating that companies need marketing ‘all the time, to bounce back more quickly from downturns and achieve long term growth objectives’.
But when it comes to marketing investment, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. Ineffective or inefficient marketing is the scourge of our industry and gives everyone a bad name. Your data is your greatest asset, it will help you tell your investment story. It will also help you to cull the investment that’s not working.
5 Top Tips when planning 2024:
1. Start with diagnosis , don’t start with last year’s plan! The temptation is always there is pull the previous year’s plan out of the drawer and do a quick refresh. But that results in a wasted opportunity. What did you set out to achieve last year? How did you do? What went wrong? What would you do differently if you could start over (because, guess what, you can)? Use your data!
2. Clear objectives - What ‘problem’ are you trying to solve next year? Be clear. Be selective. Trying to accomplish too much is a human trait, most commonly found in marketing types. Do this work with a small team. The importance of aligning on your objectives and demonstrating how these ladder up to the business goals cannot be over-stated.
3. Who are we for – And how will we serve them? Be clear on your bullseye target audience for 2024. The easiest way to dilute the impact of your marketing investment is try to be for everyone and speak to everyone. Identify your target and be ruthless in pursuing them.
4. Metrics & measurement – how will you know if you are on the right track? What metrics are you going to use this year? Set yourself targets. Do quarterly reviews, half year reviews. Stick to the agreed KPIs, don’t get distracted. Optimise on the short term, activation activity. Give the longer term brand building activity the oxygen it requires – don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
5. Resource to deliver – do a capability assessment. Do you have the right resource to deliver your plan – internally and across your partner ecosystem? Ensure everyone understands the objectives and the full plan, not just the bit they are working on.
Over-communicate, build a culture of marketing effectiveness, ruthlessly seek out the truth, ensure there’s permission to fail.
So, what are you waiting for?!