December is a great time to start planning your next year. And that includes your marketing plan. But instead of grabbing another generic content calendar from Pinterest, let’s get serious about your marketing plan for 2022 and actually make social media marketing (aka FREE marketing) work for you.
What you need to do BEFORE you touch a marketing spreadsheet
Jumping straight into writing your social media with no direction is exactly how you create a pointless marketing plan for yourself. You can write all about your business and all the interesting posts and have all the followers, but if you have no actual goals or numbers to back up what you are doing on social media, then you have a pointless marketing plan.
Start with Your Bring Home Numbers
Now, I think you are jumping straight to social media analytics numbers in your mind, but that’s not actually where I am going with this. You need to know your financial numbers!
I personally create a pretty Google Sheets spreadsheet that breaks everything down for me. I write down EVERYTHING that I have to pay for, in my business and at home. And don’t forget adding taxes to the whole thing too.
You have to figure out EXACTLY how much you need to be bringing into your business to be able to pay for all the things that you need to pay for. So first, book yourself a day to figure out all your financials and financial goals for next year before you start making your marketing plan for 2022. The numbers are always where you should start.
Figure Out Your Project, Price, & Launch Plans
So now that you know exactly what you need to bring in next year and when, now you need to take a look at your current workload and prices. Are your prices going to give you what you need and want next year? Are you launching anything new?
So let’s say that my numbers show me needing to bring $1500 home. And I also have $2000 in expenses in my business, so that means that I need to make around $4000 to make it all work after I pay taxes on top of everything as well. Everything adds up pretty quickly.
What do I need to sell that month to be able to hit those numbers?
If you are a wedding photographer, how many weddings need to be booked each month? If you are a coach, how many people need to be in your membership to hit your numbers?
Do you have the capacity to be able to hit these numbers easily?
Now you need to make sure that you can actually handle these project numbers. Do you need to hire on a team to make these numbers make sense? Do you need to increase prices? (My guess is that you probably need to do this, almost everyone is undercharging 😉)
Another reason you should be raising your prices is that every year, your experience has increased. You have spent another year in business so your knowledge has grown: you have learned new things, new systems, met new people, created new connections. Your value is always increasing.
Plan Your Calls to Action
As my coach, Heather Vickery, always says, “you have to ask, ask for what you want and be prepared.” So in order to ask, you need to have calls to action in your media plan. But first you have to create your calls to action.
You need to achieve your goals with your calls to action.
Some example calls to action are ‘follow me on Instagram’ or ‘join my newsletter.’ Create the calls to action that say exactly what you need to get from your audience this year.
Now, I’m going to put this disclaimer in here, but your calls to action don’t have to be word for word what you actually say at the end of your social media post, or your newsletter. So if you write that one of your calls to action is going to be “Follow Me on Instagram.” You don’t actually write “Follow me on Instagram,” you write things like “I share these tips every tuesday, so follow along for more.” etc.
Now, We Figure Out Your Marketing Plan
Time to jump into your marketing plan (FINALLY, right?). I break down my and all my client’s marketing plans into three steps and I’m going to walk you through these steps now.
Schedule your calls to action months before the item is needed
Timing is everything in your social media plan. You can’t expect to start using a call to action the month that you NEED it to be happening. You have to start setting yourself up months in advance. So let’s say that you are warming up for a launch of a new course in three months, you need to start warming people up and getting them on your newsletter list months ahead of time, like starting 2-3 months before the launch.
If you’re a wedding photographer, you need to be booking out that month an entire year in advance (now booking Winter 2022 weddings!)
If you’re a designer, or a coach and don’t have openings until May, then you should start the year saying that you are booked until then, but openings open up again in May.
Write your prompts to align with your calls to action
Your prompts should lead to your calls to action. Some should be obvious what you are planning to put as your call to action. Some should be a little more round about. Always giving free information that is relevant to your call to action item.
A great example is if your call to action is to schedule a consultation, your prompt should be something about a struggle or overcoming that struggle with a client so they can see your expertise and feel a connection with you. You can end the post with a call to action like, schedule your consultation by clicking the link on my profile.
Now you have a plan, it’s time to execute it!
I’ve laid out an entire marketing plan building plan for you. Now, it’s up to you to book a date in your calendar with yourself and get it all figured out. I highly recommend doing either a month or a quarter at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself.
You’ve got this.Think you need a little more help with this? Maybe a strategist on your side? Check out my new membership coming in January 2022, Make Shit Happen Hour.
