As Q4 approaches, it’s time to gear up for 2025. Whether you’re just starting or already underway, here are three questions that can provide valuable insights to inform your approach.
1. Is Your Business Plan Still on Target?
The business world moves at lightning speed. What looked great on paper in January might be obsolete by December. That’s why it’s crucial to keep marketing in sync with your company’s evolving goals and needs.
Schedule a meeting with leadership to discuss any changes that have occurred throughout the year or potential shifts on the horizon. Pose direct questions like:
- “What metrics will define success in 2025 and beyond?”
- “What will be our primary driver of revenue growth?”
- “How have market trends created opportunities or challenges?”
- “How do you envision these shifts impacting the company this year?”
By engaging in open dialogue with leadership, you can gather valuable research that could significantly shape your approach. Consider additional areas to explore like technological advancements or shifts in consumer behavior. Maintaining these conversations throughout the year will help you stay agile and responsive, ensuring your marketing strategy and plan remain aligned with your company’s evolving direction.
2. How Do Changes Impact Your Brand?
Shifts in a business plan can have significant implications for your brand, a cornerstone of your marketing strategy. Even if changes are small, it’s important for leadership and other internal stakeholders to understand why it might be necessary to reevaluate brand strategy and invest in necessary refinements.
Below are some common areas where shifts to a business plan can have a direct impact on brand strategy:
Target Audience or Market
Foundational to brand positioning, a deep understanding of audiences and markets is what drives the value proposition. When these aspects of the business plan are adjusted, see if that also changes your USP (unique selling proposition). If it does, it’s likely you also need to adjust brand messaging and tone.
Product or Service
When these are added or removed, a brand refresh might be required to maintain consistency in your brand identity or avoid confusion. You might also consider making brand messaging refinements to highlight new offerings and clarifying how they fit with the overall brand strategy – making sure to keep leadership informed.
Competitive Landscape
Changes in this area can result in a stronger competitive advantage, creating new ways to differentiate your brand. If so, adjusting brand messaging to highlight those USPs can amplify marketing, improving things like audience engagement.
3. What Can the Data Tell You?
If a measurement strategy is in place, consider how additional investments might provide answers to questions left unanswered in 2024. For instance, things like predictive analytics can offer valuable insights into future trends and target audience behavior. Additionally, lead attribution modeling can help you more accurately determine the impact of marketing channels on conversions.
If a measurement strategy is yet to be defined, pull data on the tactical level to determine how and where to make adjustments. Here are a few places to start:
Web Analytics
There are several tools to analyze website data, with the most common being Google Analytics. These allow you to get visitor and engagement numbers, new vs, returning users and where visitors are coming from. One of our favorite options is the heat mapping tool that shows how users engage with each page.
Social Media
While Google Analytics can track social media traffic, platforms like Sprout Social and HootSuite offer more in-depth analytics, including audience demographics, psychographics, and real-time trend insights. If those aren’t in place, most social media platforms have free built-in analytics tools to gather audience, engagement, and performance data.
Search Engine Rankings
Free tools like Google Search Console or SEMrush help track your website’s position for key terms and measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. SEMrush also offers a paid tool providing advanced capabilities and things like unlimited keyword research. If you aren’t ranking, it can point to clear needs like regular content generation.
CRM
Analyze how your CRM is being used and areas where data input could be streamlined or optimized. If a CRM isn’t in place, consider advocating for this investment. A CRM is essential to understanding audiences and how to best engage them.
Don’t just look at the numbers at face value. Is there an outlier? A major spike? Find out why that happened and see if you can attribute it to a campaign or specific strategy. The key here is not just to collect data, but to make decisions backed by data. Review these KPIs regularly and be prepared to adjust your strategies based on the trends you observe.
