Mid-Year Review 2022 – How We Doin?

How on earth is it almost July?

It seems like just yesterday that “All I Want for Christmas” was on continuous loop and some of us were coasting through the holiday season with the best intentions of starting fresh after New Year’s.

“Too late in the year to start something new.” (just kidding, Mike Westafer).

But if you’re like us, you also spent some of December working diligently to establish your marketing goals for the upcoming year. You undoubtedly pored over our helpful blog post, How to Calculate Your 2022 Marketing Budget, to establish a realistic budget and then crafted specific KPIs to track and hold yourself accountable against. It was such an idealistic time!

Fast forward to today.

We’re Halfway Through the Year!

Deep breath…

So, how are you doing? Were those goals, let’s say, a bit lofty? Did we underestimate how great you are at your job and set benchmarks that were a tad conservative? Or are you a brilliant goal setter who Goldilocksed your way into the perfect KPIs? (Side note: If so, do you want a job?)

No matter where you fall on the spectrum of goal setting, the good news is you still have half a year to fix what isn’t working and improve what is! Here are three quick tips to review your marketing efforts and finish the year off strong.

1. Take a good hard look at your budget

This one might sound obvious. If you’re a marketing leader, you undoubtedly were given a budget by leadership to invest in marketing. But you know what they say about best laid plans. Budgets are obviously vitally important but it’s incredibly difficult to predict how much you’re going to spend over the course of a year. Sometimes you might expect to invest a certain dollar amount into a channel that doesn’t quite pan out, or if you’re paying on a cost-per-click basis, it’s possible the channel hasn’t had the opportunity you anticipated. Or maybe you earmarked a dollar amount toward a nice-to-have like a website upgrade and you haven’t picked a vendor just yet (speaking of which, we might know somebody).

We’ve found most people treat their annual budget like they treat their vacation time. Some blow through all their PTO in Q1 and spend the rest of the year really enjoying the Federal Holidays. Other folks hold onto their vacation time and then frantically schedule it in the last six weeks of the year. The same holds true for marketing dollars. Oftentimes, marketers are hesitant to fly through their marketing budget at the start of the year and then get stuck trying to spend it rapidly before the end.

There isn’t really a right way to approach your budget spend – the only important thing is that you have a pulse on your budget and know what you have to play with for the next six months.

2. Quantify and qualify your leads

Another obvious piece of advice: review the leads you’ve generated so far this year. Really review them. Are you talking to the right kind of people? Are your lead generation efforts resonating with decision makers? Are the leads turning into sales? Big sales?

Make yourself a cheat sheet that includes:

• Total number of leads generated
• Total number of sales qualified leads generated
• Revenue opportunity generated from SQLs
• Sales closed lost
• Sales closed won
• Opportunities in the pipeline

Using this data, you should be able to ascertain if you are generating enough leads, getting the right kind of leads, if the leads are converting into sales, and if the sales numbers reflect your ideal client. From there, you can identify what – if anything – needs to be adjusted.

3. Assess your channels

Once you know the state of your pipeline, you can take a more granular look at your marketing efforts. If you’re being held accountable for generating leads, you should make sure that every campaign you’re running has clear calls to action, resonates with your audience, and encourages conversion. On the other hand, if you’re working on building a brand, then share of voice is likely your top priority. In that case, you should be trying to reach as many people as possible with eye catching creative content, memorable messaging, and brand cohesion.

There isn’t a right or wrong answer here – the important thing is to just make sure that your marketing efforts are aligned with your goals.

Let’s Sprint to the Finish!

At Roger West, we’re a glass half full type of digital marketing agency. If you have ground to make up, there’s still plenty of time! Six months is an eternity in digital marketing. And if you’re having an amazing 2022, good for you! Now’s the time to redouble your efforts to make sure the year is one for the ages – and you’re set up for even greater growth in 2023. Let’s work together to finish the year off strong and crush your goals. Let’s talk.