What To Ask Your Senior Team When Planning For 2022

Before planning for 2022 (yep, it’s approaching fast!), you need to start with a clear understanding of the business’ ambitions for the year ahead. To create an effective plan that will help you hit your digital marketing goals, you first need to answer some important questions.

Where’s the best place to find the answers? A good old-fashioned conversation with your internal stakeholders.

Asking the right questions gets the right information. In this blog, we outline the questions you should be asking your senior team to support the planning of your digital marketing strategy for next year.

Business goals and targets

The place to begin is with the bigger picture. What goals does the business have in mind for the year ahead? While you might only be strategising for 2022, it’s important to consider the long term as what you do today can have a big impact on the future.

The top three questions we advise you to ask include:

1. What is the focus for the year ahead? Consider the long term and short term.
2. What do we want to achieve by the end of 2022? This could be lead generation, brand awareness, internal engagement, more conversions.
3. What are next year’s targets? For example, sales, profit, service etc.
4. What reporting do you want from us? This question can help you track the right metrics and report back on what matters most to the senior management team.

Who are you targeting?

Without an understanding of who to target, your digital marketing efforts won’t be much better than a shot in the dark.

It’s important to cover this topic in-depth with your senior management team to gain insight into who they see as their ideal target audience. Ask questions such as:

1. Who are we targeting? This insight will inform your marketing campaign targeting lists and will help you hone your messaging to be just right for these individuals.
2. What matters most to your target audience? It’s crucial to understand what will resonate with your target audience. What matters to them? What are their values? What do they care about? Again, this customer intelligence will inform your marketing messages and can be used to refine your customer personas.
3. What do our target audience want to see? There’s no point planning a year of promotions and events if they’re not what your audience want to see. Knowing what your customers want can inform campaign plans, promotions and even stock levels based on which products or services they are most interested in.
4. Are there any common complaints or questions from current customers? Using the feedback and data you have from your current customers goes a long way to creating an even better marketing plan for next year. The insight can be used to inform where improvements can be made including whether your website needs updating alongside blog topics and social media posts.
5. What positive feedback have we had from current customers? This feedback can be used to strengthen your market presence and social proof. For example, testimonials and product reviews can be used across social media, email marketing and blog content.  

Your product or service offering

Now you know exactly what it is your business wants to achieve and who will be targeted, it’s time to set your sights on your offering.

A new year is a good opportunity to reflect on what you offer your customers. What has worked well? What could be improved? Has a certain range not sold as well as the others? Combining this data from your customers with guidance directly from your senior team can help you uncover further insight on where to improve your marketing activities.

This is an ideal time to consider:

1. Is anything in the business changing? If a new product is being launched, a service is being improved or a new store is being opened, you’ll need this awareness well in advance to plan accordingly.
2. Are there any plans in the pipeline to change our offering? Maybe a new range is due to launch, or your services are expanding. It could be smaller changes that your audience will still care about such as offering free delivery or launching a new loyalty plan.
3. Are there any plans to change suppliers or your operation model? If you’re a retail brand with physical stores, are any of these closing over the coming year? Maybe you’ve spotted an opportunity to go direct-to-consumer or you’re a wholesaler looking to change your partnerships.

Budget and resource

Your budget underpins a lot of considerations. Defining what your marketing team will be capable of achieving, budgeting and team resource allow you to realistically plan what you can achieve in 2022.

1. What is your budget allocation for the year ahead? The amount of budget you have available will impact which channels and activities you can use. This insight will also help you prioritise what’s most important for you to achieve and where to allocate your spend.
2. What resource do you have available to you? To reach expected goals, you need the right team alongside you. It’s important to be clear on the resource you already have and the skills they possess. This will allow you to identify any skill gaps in the team and work on a plan to find the necessary people in plenty of time.

During this planning process, an agency can lend a helping hand to gather the insight you need to effectively plan for the year ahead. Underpinned by a commercial mindset, exclusive data tools and technical expertise, our team have years of experience creating tailored digital strategies that perform. Get in touch for a chat and let’s get your digital marketing plan underway.