December is a good time to take a step back and evaluate all the different parts of your company, and your marketing in particular. By now, you probably have a pretty good idea of whether or not you’re on track to meet your new sales and revenue targets.
So, did you meet your 2013 marketing goals?
If you did, what will you do next year to keep the momentum going?
As you’ve probably already learned by now, what you did to get to a certain point isn’t necessarily enough to keep you moving past it. In other words, even the most successful marketers have to try new campaigns and ideas once in a while. So, if you have a winning plan in place, be sure to identify and keep the elements that are already working for you. At the same time, though, look for areas where you could find a little bit of improvement next year, too.
And if you didn’t, why not?
There are lots of reasons your 2013 marketing might not have gone the way you wanted it to. Perhaps you didn’t have the budget you planned, were missing key personnel for part of the year, or just didn’t execute a strategy the way you had hoped. Regardless of the specific cause, see if you can think of ways to avoid the same pitfalls for next year. No single mistake is ever usually damaging to a business unless it’s repeated again and again.
Although a lot of people like to focus on the creative aspects of marketing, assessing your team, goals, and performance from time to time is one of the best ways to find new directions going forward. Whether or not you are successful with your marketing goals in 2013, now is the perfect time to start looking ahead to bigger and better things next year.
