14 Dec New Year, New You

Marketing is a fast-paced business that often requires spontaneous creation and decision making. This on-the-fly style certainly works when reacting to current events and creating relevant content, but a more methodical approach is necessary in order to sustain consistent success year-round. With the New Year just a few weeks away, how are you planning to ensure success for you and your clients in 2019?

Creating both a strategic and tactical outline for your marketing strategy is a great way to plan for the New Year. A strategic outline enables you to set long-term goals and define the overarching themes and resources you will pursue and utilize throughout the year. Mapping out your year-plus strategy is a good time to redefine your brand’s identity. Just as you and your team are probably committing yourselves to personal resolutions, your brand can undergo a few positive changes as well. Updates to your logo, shifts in creative design, or changes in messaging and tone can all be delineated during this process. This big picture outlook will ensure your chosen direction aligns with the needs of your client and the capabilities of your team.

Once a strategic outline has been developed, you can create a more detailed plan that establishes short-term goals that allow you to achieve the objectives defined in your strategic outline. If one of your long-term goals is to increase social media followers and engagement, your tactical outline should nail down the specific steps you will take to accomplish that goal. As the year goes on, you can always revise the details of your plan, but having them in place from the beginning will help you better strategize and determine if and why plans need to change. Narrow in scope, the tactical outline will cover the nuts and bolts of your long-term strategy, giving you a list of tasks and delegated owners to manage throughout the year.

In essence, the key to long-term success is planning. Our profession requires a bit of flexibility and quick-thinking but nothing will be more beneficial to you and your team than putting together a plan. Your strategic and tactical outlines for the year will ensure that everyone is working towards a shared goal and has the information necessary to serve as the foundation for good decision-making.