Steps to Create a Marketing Strategy in 2024 – Fuller Marketing
The world is changing faster than ever before, and it’s essential that you are prepared for the shifts in order to succeed. Many companies have spent too much time on their current marketing strategy, leaving them behind and struggling to compete with newer competitors. On the other hand, many companies are trying to make a splash with risky or ineffective strategies that often backfire spectacularly. Now is the time for a new approach: A smarter marketing strategy that can set your company up for long-term success as you look ahead toward 2023. Fuller Marketing works with clients to make an effective marketing strategy.
1. Determine Your Goals and Objectives
Start with a blank slate: Visualize yourself in 2024, five years from now, and create a mental image of your company. What do you see? Are you expanding your market share with new products and services? Are you getting more people involved with your brand? What kind of impact will this have on the world around you? Now that you have a clear vision for your company in five years, it’s time to come up with some specific goals and objectives to achieve that vision.
2. Share Your Vision
While it’s important to have a clear vision of your company in five years, it’s equally as important to share that vision with your employees and customers. If they don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, they won’t be able to help you get there. Therefore, you need to make sure everyone is on the same page by laying out the company goals and objectives in a concise format that can be easily understood by all levels of workers. If you have a solid, clear vision of the future, they can help you achieve it.
3. Identify Your Goals
Your goals and objectives are just a launching point. You won’t be able to achieve everything in your business right away, so start at the top with your most important goals. Once you’ve outlined those goals, break them down into smaller steps that can be achieved over time. By setting a timeline to achieve these smaller goals, you will be able to determine when you need to allocate resources and how much time they need.
4. Establish Your Objectives
Once you’ve defined your goals, it’s time to break them down into the individual steps that need to be taken to achieve each one. Use a simple spreadsheet format or create an outline of what needs to be done in order for each goal and objective to be realized. Once all of your objectives have been taken care of, you can move on to the next step, which is putting together a budget for the necessary marketing resources.
5. Create a Budget
A marketing budget is just as important as your goals and objectives. It’s what allows you to carry out those objectives, and without one, you won’t be able to make the most of each marketing opportunity that comes your way. As you plan your budget, remember that these are flexible guidelines that can be tweaked based on new opportunities as they arise. Instead of creating a static budget, create one that can evolve over time.
6. Identify Your Budget
While your budget will guide you on how much you can spend in each area of your marketing plan, it shouldn’t tell you specifically where to spend your money. Instead, it should give you the freedom to decide what areas of marketing are most effective for each goal and objective that you have set up. If some channels work better than others, then funnel more resources into them. If new channels open up as time goes on, use those as well to get the most benefit from your budget.
7. Set a Budget Schedule
In order for the budget to be useful, it needs to be used properly. A well-managed marketing plan has a specific schedule for each goal and objective you’re working on. Set up your budget in a way that allows you to determine how much time each goal will take and then adjust the budget accordingly. This will allow you to have more control over the situation and make sure that resources are used effectively across all areas of the plan.
8. Maintain a Roadmap
As you work toward your goals and objectives, you may find that a certain channel or objective is harder to reach than originally thought. If this happens, don’t panic. Instead, take the plan and start again. This is how you will be able to make sure that all goals are achieved with minimal overspending and wasted time. While you may not be able to hit every goal during the first attempt, a roadmap will enable you to go back and make changes as necessary.
9. Outline Your Plan
Now that you have your goals and objectives, as well as a budget and schedule, it’s time to put them all together in a marketing plan. The best way to do this is to create an outline of the plan with a main goal or objective at the top. Beneath that, you can write your goals and objectives based on the period they need to be achieved by. Then use each small goal and objective from your budget to come up with additional details on what needs to be done for that section of the main goal or objective. Finally, add relevant details about your budget and schedule for that stage of the process into each section of the outline.
