Planning for 2022: It’s Time to Gather Key Materials for Your Strategic Marketing Plan

Welcome to November, a month when most marketers are mapping out their annual marketing plans for the coming year—and potentially pulling out their hair at the ongoing uncertainty because of COVID. While many marketing teams need to wait for the company’s 2022 business plan to be complete before starting their marketing plan, now is a good time to get started on pulling the rest of your materials together.

Several groups within the company provide the data that will build the basis for your strategic marketing plan, including the CEO, sales, business development, human resources, product management, and of course, your own marketing team.

So, what specific materials do you need to put together this strategic roadmap, and from which groups? Here are some of the materials you’ll find valuable as you develop your plan:

From the CEO, ask for:

• The company’s business goals for 2022
• Any expected financial events, such a planned IPOs, acquisitions or mergers

From Business Development, ask for:

• Upcoming partnerships and partner relations programs
• Association relations, strategic alliances and partner relations activities
• User group events and initiatives

From Sales, ask for:

• Revenue and sales goals for 2022
• A sales pipeline for each business unit
• Specific targeted verticals
• Specific targeted regions
• Potential customer announcements, even if it’s in draft form

From Product Management, ask for:

• A product roadmap, even if it’s in draft form
• Any upcoming trials or beta tests
• Milestones, such as a certain number of products shipped, number of customer installations, and other metrics that can be used in marketing

Meanwhile, your own marketing team should be gathering:

• A list of marketing goals to support the company’s business goals
• A recent competitive analysis or SWOT
• Current Positioning and Messaging
• Content Marketing goals and strategies
• Public Relations goals and strategies
• A press release pipeline inclusive of customer, partner, corporate and industry announcements
• New collateral that is being developed or will need to be
• Social Media marketing goals and strategies
• Team member roles and/or evolution of those roles
• Trade shows or events you are evaluating for the coming year, including virtual ones
• A list of paid analyst relationships for 2022, and all of the benefits they include
• Any additional marketing deliverables for 2021 that will carry over into 2022 (for example, advertising space, events and webinars)
• What analyst firms are predicting about your market segment for 2022-Cooperative marketing activities with partners and customers

Work on gathering these materials now, with a goal of collecting all the information no later than mid-November. Doing so will save you valuable time and allow you to have an approved plan in place so you can hit the ground running in January.

For more information on how to create an annual marketing plan, download Calysto’s white paper: Create an Annual Marketing Plan that Means Business or contact Calysto.