Now that October has passed, it’s time to huddle up the your team as we dive head first into the last quarter of the year. And unlike the clocks, now is not the time to fall back in your fourth quarter. It’s time to rally the troops get your marketing fired-up to end 2013 with a win!
Here are 4 strategic marketing tips to keep you fired-up to the finish line:
BE LASER-FOCUSED.
Like a super hero, scan the scene and be super-focused on only what MUST get done before December 31st. Prioritize the marketing projects and activities you believe you can honestly handle before the end of the year and those which will make the biggest impact. An added consideration is to do this while keeping holiday schedules of your employees and key vendors in mind and your year-end budgets. Lock in your vendors to your time sensitive schedules with each so they can allot time to make your work a priority and get it done around their holiday schedules as well.
GO IN WITH A PLAN.
Don’t delay scheduling critical meetings so they are sure to happen before the end of the year. Doing this now will ensure your work gets completed when others start scrambling to find the time to meet. Make sure your goals are SMART goals: specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound. Set your goals to a calendar – we use a large desk blotter-style calendar and leave it in a shared space so everyone can reference project schedules. Have daily or weekly status meetings to keep everyone moving forward together. Break down complex tasks into mini-steps with frequent ‘check-up’ meetings so the team can help if things get delayed or stalled. Keep everyone accountable for meeting their deadlines and revise the plan if needed. Overview: Make a schedule; meet often; keep each team member accountable; revise if/when needed and most importantly, keep your team communicating with one another. Sometimes working in groups means there is one team member who can stall the project for various reasons, and rather than speak-up and ask for help, it goes undetected until the issue becomes a ‘problem’. By having regular, frequent meetings on these quick projects, you can unearth issues while they are still just issues and the team can come up with a plan to resolve it.
KNOW THE FACTS.
It’s important to review and analyze what the first three quarters of 2013 so you can start developing your plan for next year. Determine what worked, what didn’t, and why. What should you be doing more of – and less? What activities did you over/under estimate. Plan accordingly. 2014 will be here before you know it and if you don’t take the time now, you will be rushing to figure out your budget and plan without full knowledge of what worked and didn’t in 2013. Have ready client testimonials, case studies, and data to increase credibility of this past year’s efforts and to help pave the way for new initiatives and budgetary considerations. All of these take time to gather so no time like the present to start building a file.
KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE ENDZONE.
Regardless of whether you are working on a goal for the end of the year or ramping up for a busy first quarter, it is just as important that you stay top-of-mind with your prospective clients and existing customers. Your communication efforts need to stay strong and consistent to keep your brand visible. You need to continue to rollout nurture campaigns to qualified prospects who are not quite ready to buy. But do not communicate just for the sake of it – offer something of interest or value throughout Q4. Think about whitepapers, articles, webinars, videos, demos, and more.
What ideas are you working on for your fourth quarter?
Let’s go!
~Amy
