Marketing tasks to kick off a successful year

It’s a new year and that means new beginnings!

Starting the new year off on the right foot can set the course for a successful – and profitable – year. Whether you are making resolutions or need a bit of motivation to ramp up your marketing, here are some ideas to kick off 2022!

Q1 marketing activities that will ensure success – year round:

“2022 is the year of the metaverse” “2022 is the year of influencer marketing.” “Kick the new year off right by embracing these top trends.” “Top 3 Marketing Trends for 2022.”

I don’t know about other marketers, but my inbox is full of endless predictions, trends, and similarly titled emails. So how do we know what’s actually useful to invest time and money in this year? Let’s step away from trends for a second and focus instead on marketing tasks.

1. Pick your marketing focus

Where should your business focus its marketing? Well, where your customers are of course!

Large corporations have the budgets required to be present (and successful) on a variety of marketing channels but that doesn’t work for small businesses or nonprofits. For smaller organizations, experimenting too much across too many platforms will end in fewer results. So you need to do the research: see where your customers spend the majority of their time. For B2B companies, that might mean in front of a computer; email and content marketing are good investments. If your target audience is millennials then paid social ads on Instagram are a great area to focus on.

This year, take the time to research your ideal audiences and allocate marketing resources appropriately, in order to connect with them where they are.

2. Focus on the consumer: align with customer goals

Marketing is all about the consumers. If you’re talking more about the details of your product or service – the features – and less about the benefits then you need to change your approach.

In a similar vein, it’s valuable to ask customers what they want. Sending out surveys asking for feedback is a simple way to hear directly from current customers and leads. You’re then able to align your marketing goals with their goals!

3. Create your marketing calendar

Scheduling out your marketing ideas for the year with a calendar is always a good place to start in the new year. Creating a content calendar is helpful because in order to make it useful you’ll need to analyze brand strategy and reevaluate your buyer personas.

Outline it all, from blog posts to improvements in SEO, to social media strategies. Include in your calendar when you’ll publish content and execute campaigns – and write out which platforms will be used.

Set your marketing team up for success by being organized! (And having a plan)…

4. Revisit your marketing plan

The first quarter is typically one of the most important for businesses. Marketing teams likely spent much of December creating a plan and now it’s time to refine that plan and get a solid roadmap in place for your brand. This will keep you on track and help navigate trends and changing customer behaviors.

In order to do so, you’ll need to review and refresh your content marketing strategy by learning from the past. Gather data; dig deep into purchase data, web stats, etc. and look for dips (and spikes) in sales. This will inform marketing activities moving forward.

5. Holiday roundup and New Year posts

This is an easy win. Your target audience and companies were likely very busy at the end of the year or traveling over the holidays and thus not as active on social platforms.

Take advantage of that and incorporate holiday themes into social posts now. Show off the company holiday party with a #tbt post. Create a ‘new year, new you’ email promoting your services or products. Now is a great time to share with your followers post-holiday, happy new year messages.

6. Use video: on several platforms

People don’t read, they watch. Want your marketing to be effective? Use more video this year and be a part of the 96% of brands who plan to increase their video budgets.

The videos you make should be various lengths since different social platforms accommodate different lengths. And different social audiences interact with different videos. Video should be present in just about every communication your marketing team does – presentations (e.g. a video annual report), social, website (think video testimonials), and email.

7. Incorporate influencer marketing

As we’ve written about before, influencer marketing can be leveraged for many businesses. Brands around the world are partnering with social influencers to help facilitate new business. Investing in influencers often results in marked improvement in engagement and acquisitions rates.

It’s a good idea to push yourself and your marketing team in the beginning of a year. We’re all (hopefully) refreshed and ready to start anew. So, whether or not you spend time on the marketing tasks discussed above, I hope you do come up with a few tasks to put on your calendar that will help ensure a successful year.

And if you are looking for trends to try out in 2022, consider employee advocacy, video content marketing, and snackable content.