Do These 5 Things Before December

Summer is wrapping up, cooler weather just around the corner, and the new school year has begun. Crazy, right? Those of you with kiddos all share the same sentiment . . . “Really?!? My kid’s going into what grade? When did he/she get so big? How did the summer by so quickly!” Yeah, we get it. Take a week or two to let it sink it. Accept the transition, the change of season, and the fact that Christmas is less than four months away.

Once reality has set in, take a moment to consider the items below as you move into the 4th and final quarter of the year. Using this as a checklist will ensure that you do not forget anything important.

Revisit your marketing plan

Review your marketing plan quarterly. Let the change of season be your reminder, the string around your finger.

Identify deficiencies. Make sure you’re getting a steady stream of traffic to your website and that those who are visiting are engaging by filling out forms, downloading content offers, buying from your online store, signing up for e-blasts, etc. Leads should be converting into customers. If these things aren’t happening, find out why. Formulate solutions and make necessary adjustments.

Review your goals alongside year-to-date stats then ask these questions.

Are our current campaigns and tactics working well? What needs to be adjusted?
In general, are we meeting our marketing goals?
Are we doing everything necessary to prepare for holiday campaigns (e.g. Thanksgiving, Christmas)?

Assess your sales and marketing processes

Now more than ever marketing teams play an equal role to sales teams in new customer acquisition and have a huge and increasing influence on the sales pipeline and outcome. When sales and marketing work together, customer acquisition (lead generation, lead nurturing, lead qualification and sales closing) is the strongest. This is what HubSpot calls Sales and Marketing Alignment.

Have you adopted this philosophy? If so, take the time to assess successes and shortcomings. Evaluate how well your sales and marketing teams collaborate (or don’t) and what you can do to improve processes for even greater sales.

If you haven’t adapted the alignment methodology, ask these questions.

Are we getting a lot of leads but can’t seem to close any of them?
Are we struggling to get qualified leads?

If your answer to both is an emphatic “no,” then you’re in great shape. If your answer is “yes” then start making plans to align sales and marketing efforts

Execute a social media audit

Take time to understand what your social media presence has accomplished so far this year. You can do this yourself, or you can hire an agency to do it for you. It seems to be most economical and practical to do your own audits quarterly and have an agency conduct an audit yearly.

If you run monthly social media reports, now would be a good time to look at them side by side to see how each platform is performing month-over-month and year-over-year. If you don’t run monthly reports, take an hour or two to run the reports then review. Click here for a more detailed way of performing a Social Media Audit.

While it’s important that your platforms are earning engagement and brand awareness, it’s also important to measure how much traffic they’re sending to your website. Google Analytics is perfect for this.

Prepare for the holidays now

Here’s a list to get you started.

If your company needs to order additional tchotchkes, employee or customer gifts, Christmas cards (think budget, updated address lists, and cost of postage), or any other holiday-related items, now is the time to think about it and perhaps even place orders.
Start formulated plans for the staff holiday party or open house. Parties don’t plan themselves and often take more time and effort than assumed.
Decide on holiday sales, giveaways, and specials.
What are your holiday campaigns? They’re most likely outlined in your marketing plan, but make a checklist now of everything that has to happen for the campaign to be launch-ready.
Does the office need decorating? Schedule 1–2 hours for a decorating activity. When planned in advance, staff will have plenty of time to arrange their schedules to accommodate the time required.
If your office or shop is closed during any of the end-of-year holidays, create a plan for letting employees, customers, members, or clients know.
Since many people take off during the holidays, send out a memo sooner than later reminding them to plan their schedules and workloads accordingly. Remind everyone to post “out of office” messages on their phones and emails.

Consider what you will do for end of the year reporting

What should the end of the year annual report include? Who looks at it and what information is most valuable to them? How will you prove ROI? How do your stats reflect the successes and weak points of your marketing and business plans?

Write down everything that should be included in the report and start formulating a plan for how the information can best be communicated, be it in paragraph form, pie charts, graphs, etc.

After the report is assembled, set up a meeting with key stakeholders to review and to begin strategizing for next year.

Wait, there’s more!

Was this list helpful to you? If so, you can download a PDF version. And don’t miss our Summer Marketing Checklist and our Spring Marketing Checklist!

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