Annual review is a wise step

When you are into the last quarter of trading in the year, it is a good time for you to consider the value of doing an annual review of your business activity.

Regardless of exactly when you conduct your annual review of your business performance, this blogpost will give you 6 reasons why your annual review is a fundamental step towards Marketing success next year.  So, your annual review will be about last year and next year, too.

Consequently, in this post I encourage you to tap into the unusual ability of an owl. It can look forwards and backwards thanks to adaptations in its neck bones that compensate for its short-comings in its field of vision. You can see the owl turn its head by 270 degrees in this short clip (shared with permission from bbc.co.uk).

An annual review will equip you with the remarkable ability to look forward and backwards like an owl. An annual review is a chance for you to conduct an internal audit of your marketing performance by examining your own records, sales data and finances.

6 reasons an annual review will deliver Marketing success for next year

1. Know your current position

Most importantly a review of your business performance in the latest year, will help you to understand where your business stands now. The process of an annual review should help you to uncover your strengths, weaknesses and competitive advantage. These will be elements that you can exploit to drive growth next year.

2. Annual goal-setting

When you have judged your 2021 results against your targets, you can decide whether you can justify a target for next year that will stretch you further?

Additionally, you will discover whether or not you have tracked the correct key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your success throughout the year.

3. Planning for growth

Next, you need to understand your performance in the latest year before you can start to make a plan for next year.

4. Understand your customers’ behaviour

Throughout the year, you will have collected records about your customers in your sales records. You can remind yourself of the practical value of those records by revisiting this post.

5. Make use of your knowledge of your sector

Next, after you have studied your own data you can consider the wider context in which you operate, too. This is where, like an owl, you can swivel your focus from looking within your business to survey your business environment and how it might affect your customers next year.

6. Use your Marketing tools

You can find the key tools that I recommend that you deploy at this point in my Business Resilience series from 2021 here.

 

If you keep these 6 points in mind while you conduct your annual review. You will be ready to develop your Strategic Marketing Plan for 2022.

 

Sign up to receive my Monday Marketing email here packed with know-how to help your business to grow.