2021 Marketing Strategy
Develop your 2021 marketing strategy — looking back to plan ahead
Developing your 2021 marketing strategy doesn’t have to be done at once. Check out these seven steps to follow.
1. Assess your 2020 goals
Your first step should be to revisit your initial 2020 marketing strategy compared to your goals and overall performance. Take note of your key performance indicators (KPIs), objectives (you’ll want to keep those in mind to determine ultimate ROI), and overall efforts.
Granted, 2020 has been a roller coaster of a year. While assessing your success, give yourself some grace given how much we all needed to pivot and adapt due to the unprecedented nature of a global pandemic.
Were your 2020 goals realistic? If so, how can you further build on that success in 2021?
Your intention should be to gain a high-level view of your marketing success. If your goal was to increase sales by 10%, did you? If you wanted to double your follower count on social media, where do you stand?
Bottom line—were your 2020 goals realistic? If so, how can you further build on that success in 2021? If not, you need to figure out why through further evaluation and adjust your 2021 plans accordingly.
Your previous year’s goals will help you define your new objectives and guide your strategy to reach them. The next steps will help you build the specific tactics of your marketing plan while also analyzing past performance.
2. Confirm your marketing and business objective alignment
Too often, entrepreneurs or business leaders prioritize marketing just to check it off the list, and they aren’t sure why. They think, “every business is supposed to have a social media presence, right?”
The truth is that every part of your marketing effort needs to support your overall business goals. Whenever you spend time and resources on marketing, it should move the needle in some way. Looking back at the previous year, with your goals already in mind, ensure you have that alignment.
If you don’t, you can adjust your 2021 marketing strategy to support your business objectives.
Part of this step of planning should be to develop critical pillars of your 2021 marketing strategy, I.E., what do you need to do next year to achieve those goals? Can you cross something off the list that didn’t work in 2020? Common marketing pillars include:
Social media management and engagement
Content production
Keyword research for on-site SEO
Paid advertising, PPC and paid social ads with accompanying landing pages
Email marketing
Make a list of your marketing pillars. As you move through the next steps, gauge success and confirm if you need to continue or pivot to a new tactic.
3. Redefine your audience (or not)
Who engages with your posts? Who opens your newsletters? Who finds your blog posts organically and reads the entire thing? The answer: your target audience. You may think you completely understand your ideal customer or client, but in reality, that’s always evolving. As consumer taste and preference change, so will your audience. Alternatively, there may be a different demographic that would benefit from your business and you had no idea.
The good news is that you can find data that tells you exactly who’s been interacting with your marketing this past year. This can help you redefine, update, and add to your target personas for 2021. To find demographic information, head to:
Social media: Insights section of social platforms, typically under audience or followers.
Website analytics: Dive into your site data to find visitor demographics. Accessing your dashboard is CMS- or platform-dependent. Check out directions on that for either Google Analytics or Squarespace.
Email marketing platform: Most email marketing providers include analytics on your subscribers, as well as information specific to each campaign.
Third-party platforms: If you use any additional marketing software or platforms, check for analytics there as well, you might gather additional insights into your audience.
When you understand the exact type of people already interacting with your brand, you can use that to guide your 2021 marketing strategy to make sure you’re creating customer-focused content and addressing the needs and interests of your audience. According to that same CMI report, more than half of B2C marketers (54%) create content for four or more audiences.
You might also find that your current targeting is still accurate, which is still great news because you can rest assured that next year’s marketing will continue to hit the mark.
Stay tuned for next week, we will share 4 more ways to create a 2021 Marketing Strategy.