As you’re making your lists and checking them twice, are you considering your 2023 Strategic Marketing Plan? Regardless of whether your ideas are still in draft or your plan is nearly complete, review these common mistakes to keep you on track in the new year.
1. Developing the Plan Without Input
Marketers often pride themselves on their resourcefulness and ingenuity, so sometimes it feels easier to create a plan and run with it. While this method may work in the short term, your strategic marketing plan is a marathon, not a sprint. Take the time to discuss the plan with key decision-makers in other parts of your organization and gain their buy-in so that your plan can build momentum with their support throughout the year. You may be surprised by the results of your conversations—whether it’s identifying helpful resources you didn’t know were available or rethinking tactics that may not align with other plans for the year.
2. Duplicating the Previous Year’s Ideas
After spending time putting thought and effort into a Strategic Marketing Plan, it’s tempting to want to reuse it the following year. But if 2020 taught us anything, it’s that the world changes quickly and each year is its own, unique situation. Going through each step of a new plan is an opportunity to question previously held beliefs about your goals and target audience and implement fresh ideas.
3. Setting Unrealistic Objectives
New Year’s resolutions have a bad reputation because they so commonly fail, even though the intent is good. Prevent your objectives from being good intentions without the appropriate follow-through by being realistic with what you want to achieve by the end of the year. If you are looking to increase your sales from repeat customers to one million dollars, but last year’s sales from all customers was $100,000, you may want to rethink what success should look like.
Ultimately, the goal of a strategic marketing plan is to be wildly effective in your marketing efforts. Not sure where to start or need some guidance walking through the steps? Check out our free Strategic Marketing Plan Worksheet to simplify your planning efforts!
