Marketing

Mid-Year Review: Looking at the Big Picture to Plan for the Future

It might be hard to believe, but we’re only a week out from the 4th of July. With this iconic holiday reminding us we’re more than halfway through the year, there’s no better time for a mid-year marketing review.  

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of your business and lose sight of the goals you set at the beginning of the year. A mid-year review gives you the opportunity to reflect on the successes you’ve had thus far and take time to strategize for the rest of the year.

Wondering where to get started? We’ve mapped it out for you:

Start with your yearly goals.

The best place to figure out what you need to do for the remainder of the year is analyze the goals you set at the beginning. Here are a few questions to keep in mind when reviewing your goals:

1. Which goals have you achieved? Celebrate your successes! Once you’re done celebrating, try identifying the key aspects that led to your success and the takeaways you can apply to your remaining goals.
2. Which goals are no longer relevant? When doing a goals check-up, you may discover there are some that no longer apply to your business or customer needs. Take it a step further and look for opportunities to reallocate resources you may have already planned for these goals to more pertinent goals you have.
3. Which goals can you put into action in the next 3 months? While there may be six months left of the year, are there any goals you can gear up for immediately? Find the goals that are most in line with your overall strategy and start working on those ASAP to drive even more successes before the end of the year.

Move onto your campaigns.

After you’ve completed a goals diagnostic, take a look at your marketing campaigns thus far.

1. Did you meet your objectives? If yes, how can you adapt future campaigns to have the same results? If no, what went wrong and how can you plan better? The key here is to use past results, no matter the outcome, to plan for future success.
2. Where can you apply additional focus on the campaigns you have planned for the rest of the year? Are you prepared for the remaining campaigns you’ve outlined? Which campaigns require more attention in order to execute them well? Do you have campaigns that need to be completely reorganized? Now’s your opportunity to get the remainder of your campaigns in line.

Get inspired.

While conducting a mid-year review, you may be feeling overwhelmed and under-inspired. So let’s get inspired!

1. What successes have your competitors’ had? In addition to reflecting on your own successes, spend some time investigating what your competitors have done right so far this year. Are they producing amazing content? Did they narrow in on their audience? Keep an eye out for overarching themes that you can apply to your own marketing strategy.
2. How can you get your team involved? Use a mid-year review as an opportunity to get your team involved in brainstorming sessions! Keep things fun and light to encourage your team to let the ideas flow.
3. What’s happening in your industry? Be leery of trends as you may not be able to pull together a successful campaign before the trend’s inevitable expiration date. Instead, pay attention to how technology, policies, and more may have changed the landscape of your industry and ideate ways you can use those changes to your advantage.

Begin preparing for the holidays.

Yes, we haven’t even hit July 4th yet and we’re telling you to plan for the holiday season. Here’s the thing… Once the holiday season starts, we all know how quickly it goes by. Want to avoid trying to pull together holiday-centered campaigns last minute and potentially miss key opportunities to drive sales during the holiday season? Start planning now.

When it comes to holiday marketing plans, there are two big questions to think about:

1. What content do you have planned? Do you already have holiday campaigns outlined? Content from past years that you can repurpose? If not, what content do you need to create?
2. Which of your products or services sell best during the holiday season? Knowing your holiday season best-performers allows you to make two incredibly impactful changes to your marketing plan. First, you can begin allocating valuable time and resources to put together well-thought out and (soon to be) well-executed holiday campaigns. Secondly, you can market the products/services that fall behind during the holiday season now, before the holiday season.

Reach out to Cross & Crown.

With your mid-year review completed, do you feel adequately prepared to take on the rest of the year? Maybe you stumbled upon a gold-mine of inspiration and are now eager to start a new project? No matter the results your review yielded, Cross & Crown is here to help bring your marketing needs across the finish line.