While it’s natural for people to think in terms of yearly objectives, it’s not the best way to handle marketing. That’s because one of the worst things that can happen to a company’s marketing plan is that it becomes irrelevant. In the modern marketing landscape, a 12-month marketing plan is too slow to develop.
A 90-day strategy, on the other hand, allows you the flexibility to adapt to industry changes or pivot to more effective marketing approaches without being locked into a strategy that may quickly become obsolete.
Considering this, you may be wondering whether you should go even shorter with your strategy. We’d advise against this. While it’s also important to have weekly outputs and monthly deliverables, these windows usually aren’t enough time to be cohesive — whereas a 90-day plan is enough time to fully implement an approach, see how it does as a whole, then strive for improvement.
[Craft Your 90-Day Plan in One Spreadsheet]
At SmarkLabs we build strategies around 90-day action plans, getting new clients up to speed and seeing qualified leads within that first quarter while building content strategy around specific assets for more established clients. The goal is always to reach the target audience in ways that are more effective than the previous 90 days. If you’re successful with this, and each quarter is better than the previous quarter, you’re able to achieve much more than if you were measuring your performance on a year-over-year basis without optimizing at quarterly windows.
One of the keys to creating an effective 90-day marketing strategy is to plan well. It’s of tantamount importance to have specific objectives in mind — before you can figure out how to get somewhere, you must figure out what your destination is. When your goals are set, the process of getting there then becomes more clear.
Doing your planning 90 days at a time helps you to reassess your objectives and outputs. This gives your team a chance to figure out what worked, what didn’t, and what you should prioritize going forward. Ninety days is enough time to test something without being stuck plugging away at an ineffective plan that people may no longer care about.
Our roadmap makes planning easier for both salespeople and marketers and helps to develop an integrated strategy that’ll pay dividends based on your goals. If you’re not sure to start but want a plan that’s easy to follow, downloading and filling out the roadmap will get you on the right track.
[Download The Essential Inbound Roadmap]
It all boils down to testing, learning from and optimizing your strategy. Embracing a quicker turnaround window gives you time to improve while still striving to hit important company goals.
As any marketer knows, it’s important to be nimble. It’s a field ripe for innovation and disruption, and best practices are constantly changing. One of the best ways to stay ahead of the curve is to keep up with marketing content — feel free to subscribe to our blog to the right, or to check back regularly for new insights into the intricacies of successful smarketing and results-driven inbound.
Do you have a different approach to marketing planning? Leave a comment and tell us what you consider the ideal time period for strategizing.
