As we start a new financial year, it’s a great time to improve your marketing plans. In our recent Bite-Size Business podcast with Jenni, we talked about three important strategies that can help your marketing efforts: looking back at last year’s results, setting clear goals, and learning from your competitors. Here’s a simple guide to these ideas.
1. Looking back at last year’s analytics
Before planning for the future, it's important to understand what happened last year. By looking at last year’s data, you can see what worked well and what didn’t.
Why it matters:
- Spot patterns: See trends in customer behaviour, busy times, and popular content.
- Check ROI: Understand how much return you got from different marketing activities.
- Know your audience: Learn more about who your customers are and what they like.
Action steps:
- Collect data: Gather information from your marketing channels like social media, emails, website, and ads.
- Examine metrics: Look at key numbers such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and how much it costs to get new customers.
- Learn from the past: Note what worked well and what didn’t. Find out which strategies gave the best results.
2. Setting clear goals based on your analytics
Once you know how last year went, it’s time to set clear and realistic goals. Use your data to set specific and achievable targets.
Why it matters:
- Guidance: Gives you a clear path to follow.
- Focus: Helps you concentrate on activities that match your business goals.
- Motivation: Provides targets to aim for, keeping your team motivated.
Action steps:
- Define goals: Based on your data, decide what you want to achieve, like more website visits, better social media engagement, or higher conversion rates.
- Set KPIs: Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that match your goals. For instance, if you want more website traffic, look at monthly visitors, bounce rate, and session duration.
- Make a plan: Create a detailed plan that includes steps, timelines, responsibilities, and needed resources.
3. Reverse engineer your competitors’ strategies
Learning from what your competitors are doing can provide great insights. Reverse engineering their strategies means looking at their tactics and seeing what you can use and improve.
Why it matters:
- Benchmarking: Gives you a standard to compare your performance against.
- Innovation: Provides new ideas and strategies you might not have thought of.
- Competitive Edge: Helps you find gaps in the market and ways to stand out.
Action steps:
- Competitor analysis: Identify your main competitors and look at their marketing activities like their website, social media, content, SEO, and ads.
- Spot strengths and weaknesses: Find out what they are good at and where they could do better.
- Adapt and improve: Use these insights to refine your own strategies. For example, if a competitor’s blog is popular, consider writing similar topics but with extra value or a unique angle.
By looking at last year’s results, setting clear goals, and learning from your competitors, you can create a strong marketing plan for the new financial year. These steps help you understand past performance and build a proactive strategy that matches your business goals and market trends. Keep following our live video podcast series for more tips and ideas to improve your marketing!
Listen in to our Bite-Size podcast episode about Marketing strategy tips for the new financial year:
Watch this episode of our Business Bite-Size on YouTube to learn more:
5 July 2024