Top 10 Reasons to Use The New Financial Year to Plan Your 12-Month Marketing Schedule
By Thomas Murrell MBA, CSP International Business Speaker
The beginning of a new financial year is a great time to plan ahead for the next 12 months.
In particular to put together a 12-month marketing or investor relations calendar.
Essentially its a good time to review the following:
1. The External Environment
How STEEP is the pathway to success in terms of Social, Technical, Environmental, Economic and Political trends.
Certainly in Australia the political situation has been evolving rapidly and has been blamed for the decline in business confidence.
2. Brand Promise and Positioning.
Are you delivering on what customers or shareholders are expecting?
For example, the number one reason investors give up their hard earned money to invest in a public company, is the listed entity's ability to execute it's corporate strategy.
For example essentially "delivering what you promised you would do" with shareholders funds.
3. Competitor Analysis.
What are your competitors doing?
What marketing or shareholder engagement or capital raising strategies are they employing?
Certainly at the junior end of the resources sector we are seeing very negative investor sentiment.
Companies are going to have to look at alternative ways of raising capital such as strategic equity funding/ off-take agreements, royalty and stream finance, private equity, hybrid mechanisms and partnering with strategic end users.
4. Customer, Shareholder and/or Stakeholder Analysis
We're seeing higher expectations in all areas.
From transparency and governance through to speed and quality of communications, branding and investor presentations.
Be prepared to react instantly 24/7 to breaking news, changes to your website, upgrades to investor presentations, staff changes, changes in share price, supply and demand considerations or negative stakeholder feedback.
5. Budgets
Shrinking budgets, a move from traditional media spend to social and digital media and greater accountability for marketing spend and marketing ROI are just some questions that need to be asked at the beginning of the financial year.
My prediction is growth in Asia in marketing budgets and belt tightening in Australia and in particular in Western Australia as the mining booms winds down.
6. SWOT Analysis
A simple and time proven way to analyse internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats.
7. Seasonal Events
There are many seasonal events that present themselves as marketing opportunities.
I'm especially fond of low cost high impact activities built around events, public speaking and public relations.
Expect to see more strategic thinking in this area as budgets tighten.
8. Micro Timing
Look at your micro timings within a marketing calendar for better impact.
For example the best time to send out email marketing is on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between 10am and 3pm.
The best time to do LinkedIn activity updates is the opposite.
For example, before 10am and after 3pm.
More time, money and resources will be allocated to social media and digital micro timing management.
9. Goal Setting
With greater accountability comes a greater need to set specific, measurable, attractive, realistic and time-based (SMART) marketing goals.
Keith Abraham is a guru in this area and you can listen to the recent podcast interview in this blog.
10. Implementation Chart
Gant chart, timetable or monthly calendar of activities.
Whatever you call it, this visual month by month, day by day, hour by hour representation of what to do when is an invaluable strategic marketing tool.
Please consider Thomas as a keynote speaker, mentor or coach on how to better market your organisation at your next conference or event. Labels: It Starts With Passion, Keith Abraham, marketing, marketing branding, marketing return on investment, marketing ROI, marketing speaker