Why Your Marketing Plan Should be Reviewed Annually

• Feb 15, 2022
• Architechs for the Web
• General Info

You know to review your tax plan, your annual budget for salaries and bonuses, the upgrades and renovations budget, your rainy day and someday funds, and your charitable donations for the year. But, one annual review business owners and company executives all too often forget to schedule is their marketing plan. Here are 5 reasons missing this strategy session could be a costly mistake.

1. Losing Sales to the Competition
Remember when a basic cookie-cutter website was enough to be ranked at the top of a related keyword search return? The search engine algorithms have made huge strides in tailoring their listings to the interests of the search user since then. Every year, search engines like Google add new elements or modify the search process to be more intuitive and trustworthy.

As a result, your website and marketing campaigns will also need to be reviewed annually to include any changes and new features that would help search engines find you, verify your business, and display your site with confidence to users. In fact, if it has been a few years since your website has been reviewed for Google-friendly features, there is a good chance your sales leads online are going to your competitors. After all, consumers cannot buy what they cannot find.

2. Ineffectively Posting on Social Media Channels
Want to know one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to grow your digital footprint and build customer loyalty? Social media channels are more popular than ever with consumers, which offers limitless opportunities for sharing your business’ backstory or reaching a larger audience with product and service highlights.

The downside? Many business owners are unsure of what to post, the format to use, which medium to choose, or how frequently to post. All of these choices are critical to maximizing your chances of: (A) retaining your followers’ interest and (B) having your posts selected as a post of interest by the social media channel’s algorithm.

By having your posting content, schedule, and mediums reviewed by digital marketing experts annually, you can feel more confident that your audience engagement is building rather than becoming stagnant, or worse, declining. For example, Facebook launched and began to take more interest in promoting Reels last fall. With an annual review of your marketing plan, you could be one of the first businesses in your industry to capitalize on such shifts and, as a result, enjoy the many benefits of being seen by more Facebook users.

3. Targeting the Wrong Audience
Now that you know your search engines and social media channels have been altering who, when, and how their users are viewing content, you might be thinking, “But, I’m fine because I just saw my Insights and Google My Business reports that show people are able to view my website, posts, and ads.” While reports are excellent indicators of how many users are seeing your website, post, or ad as well as the number of engagements you are receiving, it is equally if not more essential to simply search for your business with related words and phrases in Google. Are your website pages, social media pages, and PPC ads showing up on the first page of the search return? If the answer is no, you could be losing sales to the competitors who are taking advantage of annual marketing planning sessions and benefit from implementing the current advancements and improvements.

4. Mismanaged Advertising Campaigns
One of the worst mistakes business owners and executives can make besides not updating their website design and search engine features or crumbs is to set up ad campaigns and wait for instant success. Ad campaigns need to be consistently customized, reviewed, and analyzed to keep pace with changes in your audience interests and ad campaign options. In other words, if your ad campaigns have not been updated in the past two years, you are likely missing the mark on reaching your target audience.

5. Outdated Marketing Budget
Speaking of costly errors, if you have seen any business growth in the past year, you may be surprised at how much room you now have in your budget for a more expanded and effective marketing plan. Email campaigns, blog articles, social media postings, and pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns are just some of the inexpensive services you could be utilizing for a more powerful sales strategy. At Architechs for the Web, for instance, we pride ourselves on delivering affordable marketing services that are uniquely crafted for each individual business and based on proven techniques coupled with decades of experience. Getting noticed online has never been this easy or cost-effective!