The new year is around the corner. You and your team have probably accomplished a lot this year and you’re trying to figure out what to do next year.
Looking back on what you accomplished in 2022 to figure out what you’re going to do in 2023 can be difficult if you don’t have a plan.
This article will give you the steps we are taking to create marketing plans that help you achieve your goals in 2023. And since it’s that time of year – we will work with you to help create your marketing plan (for free). Just book a 1:1 consultation to get started.
In the meantime, here are the steps we recommend you take to get started on your 2023 marketing plan:
1. Analyze Your Results vs 2022 Goals
You need to know where you are to get to where you need to be. The success of this year’s marketing plan is determined by what you set out to achieve and where you ended up.
Any marketer worth their salt will have a plan with a few goals that are easy to achieve, a few reach goals that are challenging, and some goals in between.The first thing we do with our clients is see what we achieved in our 2022 marketing plan.
You should ask yourself – did you/your team achieve your goals in 2022?
This could be an efficiency goal for ROI/CPA, a volume goal for revenue/leads, or something in-between like hiring 2-3 new team members.
If you don’t know this off the top of your head from reviewing your reporting, then you should add “improve marketing reports” to your 2023 goals. Simply because this information is important to you and your team.
You should also look at the metrics and tasks that lead up to achieving your goals in 2022. To help you get started – here are a few key metrics we compare for our clients for example:
- Impressions
- Clicks/Site Traffic
- CTR
- CPCs
- Open Rate
- AOV
- MQLs
- SQLs
- Engagement Rate
- ATC to Checkout Rate
- ATC to Purchase Rate
- Product Page Views
- Bounce Rate
The list goes on. You should find value when you compare these metrics together and with different segments (marketing channel, device, demographic, location, competition, etc).
Once you have your data, you could ask yourself the following questions to determine you success and spark some ideas for 2023:
- What improved YoY?
- What declined YoY?
- How did our pacing look throughout the year? Was it consistent? Were there key opportunities in select months?
- Does any marketing segment stand out?
- Did we take advantage of key opportunities that we planned for?
- What opportunities did we lose sight of? Why?
- Was there anything we didn’t plan for internally or externally that we needed to adjust our 2022 marketing plan for? What was it and why did it happen?
- What could we have done better?
- What did we do a great job of in 2022?
- Were the goals easy to achieve? Why or why not?
- What would we do differently last year if we had the opportunity to get a redo?
- How did we do with our key personas vs expansion audiences?
- How can we do more of what made us successful in 2023?
Usually thinking through these goals alone and then with the team can spark ideas for 2023 goals.
2. Create New SMART Goals
What you did in 2022 should give you ideas for what to do in 2023 – and at this point, you’re probably already working towards your 2023 goals.
Having goals is fantastic if you don’t already (kudos to you for getting started!). Having better goals should give you a better chance of achieving those goals. Here’s what you should consider when you create your marketing plan:
- Specific – state what you or your team will do. There’s a difference between “making more money” and “increasing revenue by 20%”. Being specific creates more accountability. Within your goals there will likely be smaller milestones in your 2023 marketing plan. These milestones should be tasks you accomplished to get to that 20% increase and it should outline the actions required. For example, spending an additional $500/day on Google ads is a good starting point. While you could go as far as to say, “Spend $500/day on Google Ads on our top 5 campaigns to get incremental revenue”.
- Measurable – you need to be able to evaluate your success. Usually being specific helps you get started. A good way to determine if you’re on track is to see if you were able to measure your 2022 goals before creating your 2023 marketing plan. You should be able to say whether something happened and what lead metrics led to that goal being achieved or not achieved.
- Attainable – the image above is the perfect explanation of the A in SMART goals. When we create a marketing plan it can be easy to think in the abstract. That’s why it’s good to consider what is achievable with the resources you and your team have available.
- Relevant – you can create all the marketing campaigns you want to and have a great plan too. If your marketing plan for 2023 isn’t based upon goals that matter to your organization then they won’t be of any use. I like to ask key stakeholders before memorializing goals about what they are trying to achieve. This conversation can take as little as 2 minutes and can save you a TON of time..
- Time Based – It’s important to remember that plans are hard to achieve the further out we go. The first quarter is very practical to focus on because it’s immediate. Things can change a lot as we get further out. There could be a recession, another pandemic, world peace, and so forth. That’s why it’s good to evaluate your progress on a continuous basis then adjust your goals on a quarterly basis.
3. Consider The Steps Needed to Achieve Your Goals
You know what you did and what you want to do in 2023. Now what??
Any great marketing plan requires basic steps to tell you and your team what you need to do to achieve your goals. Like connecting two points on a map with a set of directions.
The good news is that you and your team should already have a great idea of what needs to be done. More likely than not, you already did it or have considered it when you were creating the goals for your plan.
You’ve thought about what you want your marketing to look like in the end. It’s almost like planning a neighborhood BBQ.
Your vision is to have everyone have fun. Your goal is to host 30 people on a sunny Saturday and have enough food for everyone, something to cook the food with, plates/utensils for everyone, 3 yard games, and music.
If you just left it at that, there would be no BBQ because you wouldn’t have the things you’d need to host one. Marketing goals are akin to BBQs because the execution needs to be planned for.
You need to know who’s getting the food, who’s cooking, who’s setting up, and so on….when you create your 2023 marketing plan you need to do the same thing.
Figure out what needs to be done within your goals. I like to create OKRs to help achieve goals then write out what we’re trying to accomplish each month/week/day.
OKRs are objectives and key results. Here’s an example from a year ago – the objective was information gathering to research future solutions for our clients. The key results were doing the following actions to complete that research.
There are plenty of different ways to outline the steps you/your team need to take. The point is to add those steps in your 2023 marketing plan. The next step after this is to take your plan and create a project workflow that assigns responsibilities and timelines to you and your team.
You should get any feedback from your team and consider adjustments before you memorialize your plan to set yourself up for success.
4. Execute on Your Plan & Continuously Assess Your Progress
This is probably the most important and easiest thing to describe. You need to do what you planned for and determine whether or not it worked.
Here are a few tips to consider as you’re executing on your 2023 marketing plan:
- Action is key – try to gradually work towards your goals over time. Compounding your work over a year can do a lot for your marketing efforts.
- Maintain accountability – this is usually why a lot of people fall short of their goals (business or personal) in the new year. They will put their best foot forward in January then slowly fall off track because they didn’t hold themselves accountable for their goals. That’s not to say that every goal has to be achieved. You should make sure that you are consciously motivating yourself and your team to achieve your goals.
- Don’t overwhelm yourself – success is slow and takes gradual, concerted action. Failure happens fast and can easily happen if you’re trying to do too much all at once. Even if you do succeed by doing a lot, it can be hard to replicate vs doing enough over time.
- Adjust your marketing goals if needed – some goals might be harder to achieve than planned. We recommend considering whether your goals need to be adjusted on a quarterly basis so you have enough time to try to achieve your goals while giving yourself ample time to set a slightly lower bar after trying. That way you can try to achieve something in-between your original goal then try to achieve that goal later in the year or next year.
Final Thoughts
Creating a marketing plan for 2023 can be challenging. If you want help creating your 2023 marketing plan, then you should book a free consultation with us today. We would be happy to help!
