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I was recently a panelist on a 2023 marketing planning webinar preparing for uncertainty and growth. The webinar focused on a few key themes that emerged from a survey of mid-sized businesses. Here is a take on advice to address challenges in 2023 around staffing, strategy shifts, inflation and uncertainty, big data, and audience/branding concerns. Good luck with your 2023 marketing plan!
Hiring and staffing concerns in 2023
- The 6 Types of Working Genius: I attended the launch of the new book by Patrick Lencioni – The 6 Types of Working Genius. This will be big in 2023, understanding your working genius will change your life. I highly recommend that you consider reading this book and completing the assessment before deciding on your headcount budget and changes to your org chart for 2023. This assessment is very different than the Myers Brigg, DISC assessment, or any other for that matter. You’re working genius is what brings joy to you in your work. This assessment is 20% personality and 80% productivity and will be valuable to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of any marketing department.
- “Resource share”: reach across the aisles to different departments to see if you can share a resource, for example, if you’re facing a process challenge and believe technology can solve the issue – reach across the table to IT or engineering to help you map out the process you are trying to automate or problem you are trying to solve before investing in Martech. Another example would be for you to work with your accounting team on budgeting for the marketing department – tapping into the skill set of those in that department, less as a colleague, and more as a key contributor to the project.
- Diversify hiring: don’t shy away from hiring seasoned or enterprise-experienced candidates for your emerging or medium-sized business. The marketplace and work environment have changed drastically in the last three years and many people are looking for the right fit in their next roles, not just a paycheck.
Two data sets every marketing team should know in 2023
- Customer data: Do you know your most important data set is your customer data? Take the time to analyze your customer data in detail, allowing your ideal customer profile to emerge from this data, and then go target your lookalikes. Spend time building a segment brief: research that will help you understand where these companies are and how to get in front of them including third-party vendors, advertising, online events, live events, publications, and other digital assets. Doing this will help you build out the foundation for your account-based marketing (ABM) strategy and should be included in every 2023 marketing plan.
- Lead data: Another hugely important data piece is your lead data, understand the conversion rates by marketing channel, and talk to sales – which leads are the best? Which are producing revenues? Review your CRM. The more granular you get the better digging deep into channels like paid search will help you identify keywords that are producing the best leads. This will allow you to double down in specific marketing channels and even deeper into keywords/ad sets and campaigns.
Don’t overlook in your 2023 marketing plan
- Brand messaging: this is an age-old challenge for most companies and should not be overlooked during uncertain times. Investing time and resources to define a clear message that includes what problem your business solves is priceless. The brand is what will set you apart next year, make sure that message is front and center in all of your marketing. Many times, when our team starts a new website project we will study the company’s homepage and not be able to understand what the company does. Make sure that your brand messaging is clear and simple to understand.
- Buying committee: make sure you understand and know your customer’s buying committee. Gaining consensus from more buyers will be critical next year so make sure your sales team and marketing materials speak to all of the concerns. This will help your company maintain and improve average sales cycles.
- Live events are back: People want a healthy break from the “Home Office”. They are either tired of being alone or tired of being with their roommates or families. Don’t rely on webinars, live events are back and should be included in all 2023 marketing plans! Enjoy and build relationships.
For a free 30-minute consultation to help you kick off your 2023 planning please send an e-mail to jgarcia@redbamboomarketing.com
