A good marketing strategy is key to the success of your company’s marketing efforts – from the messaging on your brochure to the user experience on your website. Unfortunately, many small- and medium-sized businesses approach marketing projects from a tactical standpoint, taking a responsive approach rather than a proactive one, and tackling projects as they come. As we take on a new year, it’s always in your best interest to think of tactical ways to level up your marketing strategy. Think of it as a resolution for the new year – to make your marketing in 2022 the best it’s ever been!

Kicking off 2022, B2B marketers must focus their marketing strategy on what they’re trying to accomplish, who they’re trying to reach, when they’re to reach their audience and how they will achieve their desired results. Follow these four tips to help ensure your marketing strategy is set up for success across all your marketing efforts in the new year.

Define or Reevaluate Your Buyer Personas and Target Audience

Your business exists because there was a void in customer needs that wasn’t being met by other solutions in the market. You know your product or service better than anyone – but do you know your ideal customer better than anyone? Taking time to evaluate who is buying your product or service, who is most successful in using it, and what their overall profile looks like can help in understanding what marketing tactics to implement next.

Resolution for 2022: Reevaluate current buyer persona and target audience characteristics and add or change any that may have emerged over the past year or you expect to be important moving forward.

Set Goals and Establish a Plan to Reach Maximum ROI

One of the greatest benefits of marketing in the digital age is the various options available. With digital marketing becoming marketing, tactics like social media, email campaigns, online ads, webinars and events are all instrumental components of a successful marketing strategy in 2022. But knowing your capability to execute these endeavors is equally important. Setting marketing goals that are realistic and fit into the overall company goals is a good place to start. Consider things like resources, budget, time, analysis and team members involved when setting goals as these are all critical elements when setting achievable goals. A clear marketing timeline with key milestones, deadlines and associated tasks helps supplement your marketing strategy.

Failure to set up goals can cause a loss of focus in your marketing efforts and leave marketing teams feeling unorganized. To reach maximum ROI, marketing teams need to be aligned with the marketing strategy and collaborate and communicate effectively to reach set goals.

Resolution for 2022: Set goals that are in line with achieving the maximum amount of ROI. This is critical to a successful marketing strategy.

Kick-Off Your Marketing Plan

Once you’ve created a marketing plan with clear dates and milestones, it’s time to get started on the activities included. Holding a kickoff meeting with stakeholders can get everyone engaged and aligned on what’s upcoming, who is involved and what the overall marketing strategy looks like. Schedule weekly standing meetings with your team to check in on the progress of ongoing marketing campaigns to ensure the activities being worked on and completed are aligned with your marketing plan.

Resolution for 2022: Align everyone involved in the marketing plan before starting on activities. This ensures tasks are delegated and there is a clear understanding of the marketing strategy.

Analyze the Successes and Failures of Marketing Activities

Analyzing the data and feedback from marketing activities helps determine what is working and what isn’t. If you’re sending email campaigns and no one is opening them, but have attended an event that yielded more qualified leads than you ever dreamed of, this uncovers which tactic is working better compared to the other.

Make sure you have the appropriate reporting systems in place to track and monitor the results of your various marketing campaigns and use the data you collect to make data-driven recommendations and improvements for your campaigns.

Resolution for 2022: Evaluate marketing reporting processes to ensure data collected is valuable and presented in an easy-to-understand manner.

Marketing in 2022

Establishing a marketing strategy and plan for the year can seem like a challenging task. But, by following these four tips, you can ensure marketing success for your business while maximizing your efforts and achieving the highest ROI. And, as the year unfolds with new obstacles and unexpected bumps in the road, remember to be flexible and adapt. Marketing strategies are not set in stone and marketing in 2022 will be something completely new!