Write Next Year's Marketing Plan in October

Most small businesses plan their marketing in January, if they plan it at all. It feels like the natural moment. But January is when the year has already started, the busy season for many trades is a few weeks away, and anything that takes time to set up, like a new website section, a review program or an ad account, will not be working until spring. The plan arrives just in time to be late.

October is better. There are nine months of this year's results to look at, the holidays have not yet swallowed everyone's attention, and there is still time to have things ready before January 1. An afternoon now saves a scramble later.

Start with what this year actually did

Before deciding anything about next year, write down what happened this year. Not what you think happened: what the numbers say. For each thing you spent money or time on, note what it cost and roughly how many customers it produced. If you record where every lead came from, this is a short job. If you do not, ask your team, check your call logs and your inbox, and start recording properly now so next October is easier.

Sort everything into three groups: clearly worked, clearly did not, and cannot tell. The cannot-tell group is usually the biggest, and that is useful to know in itself. It means part of next year's plan is simply measuring better. Marketing Analytics 101 covers the basics.

Pick three priorities, not twelve

A plan with twelve goals is a wish list. Pick three things that would make the biggest difference to the business next year, and write each one as an outcome rather than an activity. More booked jobs in the slow months is an outcome. Post on social media more is an activity, and it may or may not serve the outcome.

Good priorities for a local business are often unglamorous: answering every call, getting a steady flow of new reviews, fixing the service pages that get visits but no inquiries, or keeping the Google listing accurate. The fundamentals rarely feel like a strategy, but they are usually where the money is.

If everything is a priority, the plan will be decided by whatever is urgent that week.

Set the spending month by month

An annual number divided by twelve is easy to write and rarely right. Most businesses have busy and quiet months, and the spending should follow demand, usually starting a few weeks before the busy period rather than during it. Work out how many new customers you need in each month, what one customer has typically cost you to win, and the spending follows. Work backwards from the jobs you want walks through that calculation.

Mark the quiet months deliberately. They are the ones most likely to be cut when cash is tight, and often the ones where steady activity does the most good. Planning the slow season before it arrives covers how to keep them from becoming a hole.

Put it on a calendar

Turn the three priorities and the spending into a simple twelve-month calendar. For each month, note what launches, what changes and what gets reviewed. Include the dates that matter to your business: the start of your season, local events, holidays and any promotion you run every year. A plan that lives on a calendar gets done. A plan that lives in a document gets reread in December.

Decide what gets checked, and when

• Monthly: new customers and what they cost, by channel.
• Quarterly: whether each of the three priorities is on track, and whether to shift spending between channels.
• Every October: this whole exercise again, with a year of better numbers.

Name one person responsible for each check. If that sounds like more marketing work than you have time for, that is what our marketing expert service is for: a CMO who builds the plan with you and then does the work. If you would like help with next year's plan while there is still time to have it ready, ask us for a proposal.