Don’t sit there admiring your successes from last year, or grumbling over what went wrong – it’s Q4 and a whole new year is on its way. 

The question is are you ready?

By now, you should have sat down around the boardroom table with your executive/management teams and reviewed the marketing plan and budget line item for line item- and you should know exactly what delivered ROI and what did not.

If you haven’t had the ‘roll up your sleeves’ moment yet, you’re not alone and you’re not too late – but you have a lot of work to do, especially if you have to get your 2010 marketing budget approved by the higher ups before you implement the strategies/tactics in your marketing plan.

Here’s what to do:

1. Call a Meeting Today.  Gather your team (whether your company is a start up, or existing – and whether your team is just you or multiple people).  Everyone should have a copy of last year’s marketing plan, and accompanying budget (reflecting actuals/variances). 
2. Evaluate Successes.  You should already know which campaigns brought you success and which ones didn’t.  Take the ones that did not – off the budget (for now… because you also have to know why they didn’t work – perhaps it was a timing/resource issue).
3. Competitive Analysis.  What successes did your competitors have last year?  How have their strengths and weaknesses changed? Get them all on the table for discussion.
4. Audience & Messaging.  How has your target audience changed?  Ready to consider a new demographic?  How are you reaching them – are you sending them ‘buried’ messages? 
5. Advertising.  What do the editorial calendars look like for the publications you’re interested in placing buys with?  Compare and find familiarity.
6. Social Media.  It needs to be part of your plan – and not to sound cliché but you need to get with the times on this one – trust us, your audience is already doing it somewhere.
7. PR.  Who’s on your media list?  Do you have one?  Verify your current media contacts would (still) like to be on your distribution list.
8. Budget (Accountability).  What was your projected ROI, what was your actual ROI? Were you over/under for tradeshows, collateral, campaigns, online efforts, events, etc…?  How many leads are expected in 2010?
9. Checklist.  Situation Analysis/Positioning, SWOT Analysis, Corporate Objectives (marketing/financial), Strategy, and Action Items. 
10. Contingency Planning.  Once your plan and budget is drafted don’t forget the contingency plan.  This is important – you need to know how to minimize your risk and what to do if your plan doesn’t go as… planned!

Now go get ‘em… and remember to “rededicate”… a new year with new possibilities is right around the corner!

About Tanya Blackburn

Tanya is a marketing/public relations enthusiast and former television journalist with a nose for news and a knack for simplifying complex information into easy to understand, impactful key messages.