Plan Your Business, Better in 2022
New year, new business plans, right? Most entrepreneurs are looking at the new year with eyes wide open and all their possibilities ahead of them. What they don’t realize is that those impossible dreams become a lot more possible with a plan.
But there’s always something in the way. A meeting with a new vendor. Inventory counting. A client bailing on a meeting at the last minute.
The 4-hour work week you planned quickly turns in to a 40-hour work week you are trying to escape. It seems like there is never enough time to plan.
That’s normally why people come to work with me in the first place. They are excellent in their business, masters of their craft but when it comes to getting the word out about that craft, nada.
Here’s my 3 steps to help you plan for better promotions and higher sales in 2022.
STEP 1. REVIEW LAST YEAR
Think about your favorite TV show. There’s a new season and you can’t wait to Netflix and chill it. You have your popcorn popped, ice cream on the end table and throw blanket wrapped snuggly around you. You turn the show on and you are taken in by the 15 minutes of review of the most impactful scenes from last season. You’re taken away remembering all the exciting stuff that happened.
But as it drags on you have a crucial decision to make: do you watch the review (you’ve seen all this before) or do you watch it to make sure you’re not forgetting any important details in the new season?
It’s a no-brainer. Watch the review. They always include some small detail that becomes a major plot twist in the new season.
That’s why it’s important for your business to do a review. You need to refresh your mind of all the small, impactful details. When I work with my clients, we do an entire exercise where they explain to me their marketing efforts in the past. For them, as long as everything lives in their head, they are still reacting from it. When they tell me about it and write it on paper, they are learning from it - pinpointing their successes and failures. Then the engineer in me takes the data and feeds it into the new marketing plan.
STEP 2. DECIDE WHEN TO PROMOTE
You have your marketing data from last year, awesome. Now let’s figure out how we can increase sales. The first step here is to think about what’s important to your brand. This is where most of my clients get lost in the sauce.
Everyone knows they want to have sale after sale. More sales equals better bottom lines, so they say. But if you do that, then you become known as the ‘cheap’ brand. Or the ‘bargain’ brand. In 2022, we’re elevating. Dig deep into what’s important for your brand and your audience. Maybe Valentine’s Day isn’t important to your audience. Maybe it is, but it’s not something your brand can help them with. These are the things to consider when deciding your promotional days.
A great example I can pull from a previous client is planning a promotion around Neurodivergent Pride Day. It could have been a great time to promote or have a sale but ultimately, we came to the conclusion that it’s better not to capitalize on a day not meant for you. Unlike a lot of big brands that wait til June 1 to change their logos into a rainbow, we decided it was better not to follow that same path. It takes more than a rainbow logo to support the LGBT+ community. We instead focused on positive representation all days of the year instead of empty pandering for one month.
Other practical factors you should consider are do you have the bandwidth for a promotion. Do you have a social media team in place to handle new traffic? Is your web master in place on case there are server problems from the increased traffic? It’s good to take a breath in there and let your audience off the hook a little so remember a sale or promo every month isn’t necessary.
STEP 3. EXECUTE THE PLAN
Here’s where we put everything together. By now, you know which marketing tactics were successful last year and which weren’t. You also know when you want to promote. Now it’s time to execute the plan. Put everything together and watch it work.
The time it takes to put this together shouldn’t be long. Here are some key factors that determine how long it should take you to plan a year long promo calendar.
Have you ever done a critical review of your business before? If you haven’t, plan on it taking you a little longer.
Do you already have promotional offers? If you do, then tune those offers up for the new year. If you haven’t then you’ll be planning those offers out. That being said, at this stage all you’re doing is putting it on your calendar.
The most important factor is your personal motivation. Planning can be a struggle for people that aren’t used to doing it but if you want a business that lasts well past 2022, you’re going to have to learn.
Once you have your calendar all figured out, make sure you stick with it or give yourself parameters for change if something doesn’t work out as planned. For example, if your goal was to sell 100 jewelry sets but you only sold 50, then that’s a good place to start deviating from the plan. You should be figuring out why you didn’t meet the goal. Devise a plan to improve then do the new plan until you meet the goal.
Plans are made to help us reach our goals but don’t be afraid to move things around a bit when they aren’t working out the way you thought they would.
If you need a structured tool to help you with your planning, the Plan to Profit Marketing System will be a big help. This is my system that I use with my clients to plan a successful promo calendar and it’s the first thing I do with them right after onboarding.
I’d love to have you work with me one on one. If you’re ready to take your marketing to the next level and start scaling your business, apply to work with my team here.
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