5 Steps for Building a Strategic Marketing Plan in 2023

Do you know how you plan to spend your marketing dollars in 2023? We’ve helped dozens of Newcastle businesses review their marketing performance and build their annual marketing strategies. Today, we’re going to explain how we recommend creating a marketing strategy to help your business have a successful 2023.

We understand that every business is unique. There are far too many variables to consider to write a catch-all guide – so take the advice below as a starting blueprint. But if you want to dive into the nitty-gritty details and develop a strategic marketing plan for your business, let’s schedule a consultation call.

First off, what is a strategic marketing plan? 

A strategic marketing plan is a process of analysing your business goals, target market, and customers and identifying the best ways to achieve your business goals. Through the process, you lay out a marketing plan in a document with corresponding action items to execute throughout the year that can be easily referenced and used as a guide for all stakeholders.  

Strategic marketing planning typically happens once or twice a year. We recommend always starting your year with a planning session that allows you to understand what marketing activities you will need to execute to help achieve your 2023 business goals, and scheduling 2-3 sessions through the year to check in on your progress. 

Things to take a look at before you start planning for 2023

• How much did you grow in 2022?
• Did you reach your previous goals? If not, why?
• Which marketing channels drove the most growth for your business?
• How fast do you want to grow in 2023?
  • Pay-per-click, or PPC, advertising (Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, etc.) is a better short-term investment if you need to see consistent growth quickly. However, long term investments like search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing will help you to see exponential growth and much lower cost-per-lead in the long run.
• Has your competitive landscape changed? Take time to re-evaluate your competitors and understand how they may have shifted their offerings in 2022. 
• Review your customer feedback. Were customers happy with your services? Or did you receive a spike in complaints?
• Run a SWOT analysis to identify any internal and external weaknesses or opportunities that may shift your business objectives in 2023. 

Step 1: Define your business objectives for 2023 

A key element of your strategic marketing plan is understanding what you want to accomplish. Set one or two primary goals and a few secondary goals for the year. Goals may involve: 

• Launch new services
• Revamp your website
• Increase sales
• Increase customer retention or engagement 
• Grow your brand visibility
• Improve customer experience
• Implement a CRM or dashboard to improve the way you track, measure and analyse your sales and marketing data

Two important pieces of advice here:

1. Be realistic – understand what is reasonable in terms of expectations and achievement.
2. Make each objective a SMART goal – outline how progress will be measured, be specific about key performance indicators (KPIs) and include a timeframe. 

Step 2: Specify your marketing budget 

Just like with goals and KPIs, you have to be realistic about the money you have to spend to execute your strategic marketing plan. Knowing the gross budget simply helps in “big picture” management. And as an agency owner with experience, it definitely helps us to better allocate your budget and improve ROI by knowing exactly what budget we have to work with upfront. 

Step 3: Prioritise strategies and tactics that align with your business objectives 

Now we enter the execution phase where we outline the marketing strategies and tactics we believe will help you achieve the business goals you’ve outlined in Step 1.

Some quick-win tips here are:

• Focus on PPC and SEO if you are wanting to acquire more customers and increase sales
• Invest money in social media, imagery and video if you’re looking to enhance your brand
• Invest in email marketing, reviews and customer journey mapping if you are looking to improve customer engagement and retention
• Always assess how you can improve and optimise your website for lead generation
• Conduct an audit of the existing marketing content (images, video, infographics, blog content, lead magnets, etc.) you have to work with and determine what new content is required to accompany the strategies you are engaging in.

Step 4: Develop a marketing calendar

Now that we understand the marketing tactics we will use, we can begin to lay them out in a calendar. Your calendar should include dates, content, distribution channels, deadlines, budgets and who is responsible for overseeing the activity. 

Since digital marketing is fueled by content, it’s essential to identify both the type of content you’ll want to develop and the channels you’ll use for distribution. Content could mean anything from landing pages, blog articles, printed marketing materials, webinars, videos, demos, etc. 

We recommend outlining quarterly content plans that specify the topics and formats you want to tackle as well as the distribution channels you will use (website, email marketing, PPC, paid social ads, etc.) 

It’s also important to outline the regular, long-term investments you are making in your marketing that require consistent maintenance and optimisation. Activities such as SEO and organic social media should be outlined in your marketing calendar on a weekly or monthly basis.  

Step 5: Outline how you will track and measure success 

There is no point in creating a strategic marketing plan if you don’t include how you will track, measure and optimise your marketing activities. 

As you create a new marketing plan, remember that you will need to be able to look back and assess your efforts. Set dates and deadlines to check in and track your success. Share data with key stakeholders, and set up data systems or a marketing dashboard that make it possible for you to regularly check in and measure your success. 

Do You Need Help Building Your Marketing Strategy for 2023?

The key to getting more out of your marketing is having a plan. Contact us today to discuss how we can help you achieve your growth goals.