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15 Ways To Ensure Your Yearly Marketing Strategy Stays On Track

Forbes Communications Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Expert Panel, Forbes Communications Council

Every successful entrepreneur knows that setting goals for the coming year is a necessary step for staying on track throughout the coming months—it’s difficult to chart a course when you havent chosen a destination. Working with your team to set strategic marketing goals for the new year is not only a good idea, but necessary.

Yet, setting goals is only half of the battle. The other half is staying on track to reach those goals throughout the entire year. To help you stay the course, 15 members of Forbes Communications Council detail one key factor that can ensure progress stays on track throughout the coming 12 months.

Photos courtesy of the individual members.

1. Test And Refine

Quarterly check-ins are key to keeping your marketing team on track. At the end of each quarter, our team reviews our goals, assesses progress on the goals and adapts our strategy depending on our findings. In this way, we can determine if we need to change course, keep moving forward or celebrate our accomplishments to date. - Lisa Guyott, College Possible

2. Be Transparent With Progress

As team members hit specific milestones in the roadmap, celebrate these accomplishments and make a big deal of the progress. At the same time, if progress is limited, make goals public on a physical or digital board and track where the company is at, along with projections for the coming months. This transparency will make everyone accountable for hitting your departmental goals. - Mandy Menaker, Shapr

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3. Explore More Channels

Measure the top-performing channels and make sure you put a plan in place to maintain them with steady growth, but at the same time allocate budget for exploring new channels and targeting groups. In order to maintain and grow, add new creative every quarter and grow the budget in a relative percentage. For new channels, set an A/B method in place with a blast budget to start, and keep the ones that work. - Kobi Ben-Meir, Yalber

4. Get Buy-In From Your Management Team

Throughout the year, you will be working closely with sales, customer care, operations and more. In order to achieve your goals, you need to get buy-in from the management team. That will ensure your goals are good for the progress of the company as a whole and supported by all employees, and it will empower you to achieve goals faster and with better results. - Holly Chessman, GlowTouch Technologies

5. Invest In Digital Processes

Invest in technologies like digital collaboration platforms that can help marketing teams work together seamlessly, no matter where they’re located, and keep them on track to achieve their strategic goals. Also, set aside time to invest in the development of your people, ensuring they understand the latest digital technologies so you can keep moving forward successfully. - Alex Goryachev, Cisco

6. Determine The Intent Of All Objectives

Determine the intent of all objectives and tactics to achieve the goals. As a team, define how each task we’re doing connects with the big picture. If we’re doing something that doesn’t affect one of the strategic goals, we should review why we’re doing it. To keep the team on track, we developed key performance indicators that we review monthly. This provides agility to make changes if needed. - Rachel Verslues, Primaris

7. Stick To Your Project Management System

Whether it’s a Google spreadsheet or a robust project management system like Asana, the key is to pick a system and stick to it. Whatever you choose, make sure the entire team can see progress in real time. This helps team members have autonomy to achieve the goal, rather than feeling micromanaged with the boss constantly asking, “Where are we on this?” - Holly Tate, Vanderbloemen Search Group

8. Use Tracking Software

There are an endless number of tracking tools, from Jira, to Confluence, to Google Drive. The key to staying on track is picking one, ensuring the entire organization is actively using it and sticking to it for the full year. Too many organizations change software tools—endlessly searching for the one that solves every problem—when the key is really just making sure everyone is using the same tool. - Keith Bendes, Float Hybrid

9. Discuss Goals Regularly

When thinking about yearly goals, it is important to keep them top of mind, even outside of quarterly reviews. One strategy is to discuss goals during regularly scheduled meetings. This helps ensure that day-to-day processes and activities are aligned with your strategic objectives for the year. - Alyssa Kleinman, CipherHealth

10. Treat It Like A Road Trip

We treat our annual plan like the map of a cross-country road trip. We know we need to head east, and we know the key freeways to hit, but we only tactically map a quarter of the journey at a time. This forces us to meet regularly to update our course, correct for potential hazards or delays on the horizon, and update our goals if unanticipated challenges are present. - Colby Reade, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust

11. Make Every Team Player Accountable

Making every team player accountable for their piece of the action and making that information public is key. Teams working in silos often don’t get to see the big picture. Team meetings are vital in making everyone realize that the success of the group depends on their individual contribution. Full transparency, meritocracy and accountability is what drives collective success. - Yana Nigen, JobDiva

12. Hold Out-Of-Office Meetings

Planning a quarterly luncheon, golf outing, team run or other exciting out-of-office activity while discussing progress of strategic marketing goals set for the year helps to make the process fun versus intimidating. Be creative and allow your team members to develop the event, set the agenda and drive the discussion as you listen and provide feedback. It should be something they look forward to! - Glenn Gray, Buffalo Agency

13. Prepare For Any Obstacles

As you set your marketing plan for next year, be proactive in determining what the potential challenges may be and how your team will eliminate these obstacles before they even pop up. You may need to keep these challenges on your radar throughout the year, but you will be familiar with how they will impact your plans. - Kara Cowie, SkillPath

14. Set OKRs And Measure Often

Set objectives and key results (OKRs) and constantly measure/report. Setting clear OKRs connects business and marketing goals with tactical actions. We analyze and report on OKRs weekly and quarterly. This forces the organization to reflect and learn regularly, run a systematic test and learn methodology, spot challenges and find solutions quickly, and measure impact often, so there are no surprises. - Dario Cardile, Altisource

15. Communicate Transparently

Good goal setting shouldn’t be “set it and forget it” but rather something that is actively part of an employee’s mindset and job. Actively communicate with one another about how work is supporting goals and be transparent about where you are and where you need to be. - Sara Larsen, Brightcove