It’s that time of year again! Time to put a finger in the air and make an educated guess at what you need to do across the next 12 months to drive your business forward.
Planning is a colossal challenge. When you throw limited resources and an ever-changing business landscape into the mix, it can look like a pretty scary prospect.
In this episode of Demand Gen U, Mark Huber, Head of Brand and Product Marketing joins Jason Widup, VP of Marketing at Metadata to discuss how you can build your 2023 marketing plan…sort of!
Mark and Jason explain the benefits of involving other teams in your planning, how to plan objective key results that work and why planning your year to the letter is simply impossible.
Find out:
- Why goal setting often trumps stringent planning
- About when marketers become salespeople
- How far ahead to plan
Top three takeaways:
Takeaway 1: How far ahead you should plan
The reality is: whatever plan you come up with right now is probably wrong.
The current issues challenging businesses, such as the recession and the pandemic, can’t be compared to past crises.
There’s no way we can look at how we got through past challenges because these are just so different.
Metadata’s VP of Marketing, Jason Widup, suggests planning one or two quarters in advance is all you should really focus on.
There’s no harm in forming ideas of where you want to be in the future, but any strict plans will eventually prove unrealistic.
Metadata advises that you should remain conservative in your planning.
Takeaway 2: Involve other departments in your plan
If you’re in marketing and you’re not involving sales in your planning process, why not?
It’s really important to have the sales team on board with your marketing plans, so everybody is on the same page.
Involving other departments is such an effective way to get everyone singing from the same hymn sheet and working toward the same goals.
Takeaway 3: Don’t create a 12-month marketing plan
If you think we’re telling you to ignore the title, we sort of are!
Planning a whole 12 months in advance is nigh on impossible, due to constant changes. Even before the challenges brought upon us by the last few years.
Mark Huber, Metadata’s Head of Brand & Product Marketing, suggests forming goals for the year ahead rather than writing up set plans.
