While the net is dominated by the New Year marketing musts every business should embrace to boost their strategies for 2024, creating a marketing checklist this January that goes back to basics is certainly one thing I’d recommend. Following the trends has its part to play in any marketing campaign, yet building a marketing plan that takes you from the grassroots up yields even better results in the short and long term.

In this blog post, I share the four key areas that should be on your January marketing checklist and the tasks that will help you get ahead for 2024 and beyond!

Complete a year in review

Marketing plans of the past can offer plenty of useful insights and pointers when devising campaigns that deliver success for 2024. Review your marketing activities over the past 12 months, and dig as deep as you can into campaigns to uncover the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

By drilling down into the nitty gritty, you can take a holistic look at what worked, what didn’t and how you can move forward positively.

Weigh up the competition

Reviewing the marketing strategies of others within your industry sector counts too. By completing competitor analysis, you can give your own business the edge. Use analysis to gain valuable insights into the strengths, weaknesses and strategies of your competitors, and use them to your advantage as the base of your next marketing campaigns.

Set your goals for 2024

Setting clear goals is your next step and while you should at this stage have an idea about what you want to achieve, setting goals with specific timeframes will help you define other musts, including what channels you’ll utilise, which tactics you’ll use, and what metrics will help you measure your successes and areas of improvement.

Keep every goal you make SMART (i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely), set your timeframes, and celebrate every milestone.

Know your audience

You could have the most well-thought-out campaign and apply it to exactly the right channels, but if it doesn’t resonate with your target audience, it’ll be money down the drain.

Get to know your target audience inside out, and make sure that the customers you are targeting align with your business and its goals. It’s the key to completing the marketing puzzle, especially during 2024 when savvy consumers know exactly what they want.