It requires effort to develop an annual marketing strategy that supports the expansion goals of your business. The power of the flywheel is utilized by next-level inbound marketing strategies, which unites the marketing, sales, and service teams. An inbound marketing strategy makes use of the force, friction, and momentum that these factors produce in order to support complex businesses in achieving their growth objectives.
1. Identify business growth initiatives
A marketing strategy created around ambiguous, or worse, unknown, corporate growth ambitions is a fruitless endeavor. To get their thoughts on the group’s vision for the future, get in touch with important department heads and decision-makers. Prior to creating a plan, engage in discussions and roundtables to get everyone on the same page.
Avoiding the error of creating a marketing plan in a silo offers value, speeds up buy-in, and gives your inbound efforts a defined path.
2. Set goals
Putting together a team to offer opinions and insights on growth efforts is one thing. Having agreement on objectives is one thing; having agreement on what constitutes achieving those objectives is another.
Here, there are two things that are crucial. Be practical first. Review the year’s objectives and accomplishments thus far to determine what is reasonable in terms of expectations and results.
Second, specify how advancement will be gauged. Key performance indicators (KPIs) for lead attraction and conversion, MQL and SQL percentages, and a frequent progress/goals review cycle—typically at 90-day intervals—should all be defined.
3. Set budget parameters
You must be realistic about the amount of money needed to carry out an annual inbound marketing plan, just like with goals and benchmarks. Simply understanding the gross budget aids in “big picture” management.
To maximize return on investment (ROI), which strategies are worth investing in? Is there a better way to modify the frequency, content type, technology, etc. to keep within the budget and still produce the desired results?
4. Prioritize strategies with growth initiatives
You may now begin the annual marketing planning process, and most importantly, the tactics, with everything in place, including the path, goals, progress benchmarks, and budget. Since content powers inbound marketing, it’s crucial to decide on the kind of material you should create as well as the channels you’ll use to distribute it.
A good strategy for establishing a regular cadence and ensuring you’re using every possible distribution channel—including your website—is to create quarterly content plans that include the subjects and forms.
Implement growth-driven design (GDD) to keep your website current, pertinent, and updated with ongoing learning and improvements. commit to not letting it lag. Likewise, don’t disregard tested target-based tactics. ABM (account-based marketing) concentrates your efforts on prospective best fits. Plus, boost results with direct mail, email blasts, and trade shows.
5. Flexible and agile
For the future year, you must have an annual marketing plan. But keep in mind that things might change; nothing is set in stone. You’ll need to be nimble enough to adjust throughout the year based on data about what is and isn’t working.
A 90-day marketing roadmap with specific focus areas and strategies should be used in tandem with a yearly marketing plan. This doesn’t mean abandoning your marketing strategy; it just means tweaking it to account for the variations and keep your bigger objectives moving forward.
