The seasonal adverts have begun, the countdown to Christmas is underway and, for business across the world that means one thing: planning for next year’s marketing. 39% of marketers feel that their existing marketing strategy is just not effective; the start of a new year is the ideal time to review and reassess. If you want to make sure that you’re fully prepared to see more ROI on digital marketing in 2019 then now is the time to make changes to ensure your efforts are on target.

Focus more on your audience

How well do you know your audience? If there is one single factor that can really shift digital marketing back on target its better understanding of an audience. Marketing personas can be very useful here and can be as in-depth or brief as required. Factors to consider include basic information such as location and age, as well as behaviours and characteristics (which can be gleaned from Google Analytics Audience Reports), needs and objectives, problems the audience wants solving and who influences them online.

Clearly define your goals and KPIs

Reducing ambiguity over objectives will help your digital marketing to feel more targeted next year. Start with the biggest goal of all – what are you trying to achieve with digital marketing? Spend time defining your KPIs, including the goal, changes you’re looking to make and the time in which you want to achieve this. Make sure you also define how the KPI is going to be reached in terms of practical steps.

Shed what isn’t working

There is no point carrying anything into the new year that hasn’t worked for your business so far in a digital marketing context. Streamline your efforts and identify what hasn’t achieved results and where the performance simply hasn’t been there. Analyse this in the context of your competitors – Google’s Benchmarking Reports are great for insights into competitor performance. If something isn’t working then stop wasting resources on it.

Choose your channels

Choosing the right channels for your digital marketing will have a big impact on how effective it’s going to be. Focus on those that have the most potential to deliver and define what you want to achieve with each in 2019. Set KPIs for every channel so that you can continue to assess effectiveness.

Review your resources

No matter what the size of your budget there is always something you can do in digital marketing terms. When you’re refocusing for 2019, look at whether your existing resources are being well allocated. Are you seeing a return on investment or is it money going down the drain? Are you paying for certain channels when you could actually achieve as much with free resources? It’s also crucial to look at team structures, especially whether you need a bigger team or your 2019 goals could be achieved by outsourcing.

While no one knows quite what 2019 will bring, preparing your digital marketing planning now will provide an essential element of readiness.

Author: Steve Pailthorpe – Follow us on Google+