As 2019 comes to a close, it’s time to start looking ahead to next year’s goals. As a business, your priority for 2020 must be revising your advertising and marketing budgets in order to achieve the ambitious targets you have already set for the coming year. But wait… how exactly do you create a budget that ensures your marketing strategies will thrive? The first step is to establish concrete ideas about all of the elements of your marketing strategy.
What Do You Want To Attain Specifically?
Answering this question will allow you to prioritize the tactics you should focus on the most. It is important to consider other vital questions as well, such as: What is your target market? What makes your brand unique and how do you want it to be viewed? Who are your biggest competitors and how can you differentiate yourself from them through marketing?
After you answer those questions, you may want to revisit your past results. Look at your prior inversions to see which channels and tactics performed best during the year. Make sure to pay close attention to what hasn’t worked as well. Using your past results as a resource is the best way to get useful information for your 2020 strategy and budget.
So, With That In Mind, Ask Yourself The Following:
What marketing tactics have you used in the past?
Would you continue to invest in them and even increase your spending?
Which channels aren’t performing well enough?
Which channels drive the best results based on your marketing objectives?
The answers to these questions will help inform your media planning. If you’ve tried out certain channels or marketing strategies and they’re simply not producing results, it might be worth removing them completely from your strategy or cutting down the budget.
Taking a fresh look at your marketing budget and media plans also gives you the opportunity to think about the latest trends in the industry, which will help you stay up to date and in tune with customer expectations.
Now Is The Time For Action
Ask yourself one final question:
What marketing activities should you spend on for 2020?
We’ll recommend some strategies to you that we consider as fundamental, but remember that the strategies you pick must be able to adapt to the results you’ve already audited. Here they are:
Content upgrade: all kinds of targeting, experimentation and promotion. Put in effort around your best content. This includes downloads and paid ads.
Paid search ads, pre-roll videos on YouTube, or a heavy remarketing effort on Facebook.
Look at the data and find what has been working for your company to create “marketing qualified leads”.
Invest in a quality brand video that tells the story of your ideal customers or clients. Make sure to make it about them, not you.
Regular content marketing videos that let your subject matter experts entertain and educate. Find out where your ideal customers are and try to master the format there.
These are the basic questions and ideas you need to keep in mind when planning out your marketing strategy for the coming year. Planning a digital marketing budget can be a huge headache, but if you do it correctly, it can have a positive impact on your success in 2020. Now, it’s time to get down to business. HAVE A HAPPY (AND SUCCESSFUL) NEW YEAR!
