5 tips for your 2025 marketing plan
We know – we were celebrating the start of summer only yesterday!
But as 2024 draws close, now’s the best time to start planning for 2025. It’s vital to put together a plan earlier rather than leaving it to the last minute to ensure your business’s marketing success.
It can be daunting; often, knowing where to start is enough to make you want to give up before you’ve even begun! So, we’ve created five top tips and a checklist to guide you through the process.
1. Who? – Your Target Market
Now’s a great time to re-assess your target audience. How have things changed for your business in 2024? Are you going to adjust your focus to a new demographic? You could feel you’ve already fully saturated the marketing potential in a particular geographic location. Now it’s time to broaden your horizons and reach a market further afield. Narrow this down as much as possible by considering a few categories: Age? Location? Sex? Profession?
2. Where? – Whereabouts do you want to focus your efforts
It’s time to assess what worked for you in 2024. Traditional marketing or digital? It could be that you’ve tried specific social networks for advertising and now want to reach out and try other platforms to extend your online reach. Or perhaps you succeeded with a print advertisement and want to target different publications. Remember quality over quantity! Don’t try to spread yourself too thinly; learn and assess what works for you and go with that.
3. What? – Your End Goal
Every business has – or should have! – a focus, something they want to achieve. This should be included in your marketing plan. What do you want to achieve from your marketing efforts this year? Increase brand awareness? Boost your web traffic? Gain more followers online? Whichever you decide on, make sure all of your marketing efforts are in some way helping you take steps towards achieving that goal. Be specific here – obviously, every business wants to ‘make more money’ or ‘gain more clients’ – but think specifically about what would help you achieve this.
4. Calendar
It is a smart idea to create a marketing calendar for organisational purposes and a great way to keep on top of your goals. Set monthly, even weekly targets throughout the year, and then take the time to see whether you’re achieving them. If not, you’ll be able to act quickly and see what needs tweaking/adjusting in your plan.
5. Budget
Finally, of course, is your marketing budget. Before breaking it down further, it’s a good idea to split this between digital and traditional marketing. Take a look at your spending for the previous year—do you feel you really made your budget work for you? Did you get a good ROI? Assess this carefully before setting out your budget for next year. Happy Planning! Get in touch today if you need any assistance with your digital marketing campaign for 2025.
Need help with your marketing in 2025? Contact VCM in Surrey.