Making plans for 2013
Thanksgiving is now over, and that means the holiday season in underway and 2012 is winding down. This is often the time of year that businesses sit down and start revamping their business plan for the year to come. It’s the ideal time to figure out what you should be doing more of, what you should start doing, and what you could be doing better.
There are so many elements of online marketing to think about that it’s practically impossible to be on top of every single one of them. Unless you’re a large corporation with an entire marketing team behind you, chances are there are a few elements of your online presence that are sorely lacking. When you sit down to start figuring out how you can take your business to the next level next year, make sure you ask yourself the following questions.
Pinpointing specific goals
What are my goals for this coming year? Do you want to generate more leads? Are you looking to start a vendor program? Do you want to publicize yourself more in your individual community? Don’t just have a general goal that states that you want to make more money. In order to reach a broad goal like that, you need to pinpoint specific goals that will help you reach the bigger one.
What are the best, most efficient ways for me to achieve those goals? Take a look at what you are currently doing to bring in business. Is it working for you? If it’s not, what can you do to make it better? Simply getting rid of marketing initiatives like social media, blogging and email campaigns isn’t an option because that won’t help your business come in. You need to look at each aspect of your online marketing and figure out what’s not working. Is it content? Lack of consistency? Not enough time dedicated to that particular marketing tactic? Once you identify the problem, you can come up with a comprehensive solution.
What should I be doing that I’m not already doing? This is where doing your research will come in to the equation. If there’s something that you’re not already doing that you need to add to your business plan, you need to figure out what that is. See what services are out there. Assess if they’re right for your business. If you can’t name the value or benefit of a certain service, then you’re probably not going to be able to use it successfully in your marketing efforts.
What’s my plan of action? Once you figure out what you need to do to jump start your marketing plan for next year, you need to figure out how you’re going to implement it. What are you going to outsource? What are you going to keep for yourself? The sooner you come up with a plan to implement your ideas, the closer you’ll be to putting your strategy in place and reaching your goals.
A new year is on the horizon, and that means that there will be a new opportunity to take your business to the next level. The question is: what are you going to do about it?
