It is early January. The new year has frigidly begun. In business, early January means it is time to start making marketing work, because here is what typically happens to business-to-business marketing between Thanksgiving and New Years Day: it goes dormant. Unless you are in the business-to-consumer retail industry, marketing plans and any execution of it gets shelved by most companies during the holidays. Try to talk to someone about their marketing plans and they will put you off until the first of the year. But alas! The new year’s upon us. So here we are – post holidays and ready for the marketing switch to be turned on.

The only problem is most marketing departments get to this time of the year and try to flip the marketing switch on, but it just doesn’t seem to work quite like they thought it would. What is missing? Typically there are two things that make this an arduous process. The first is understanding the people who make up your target market and timing your message to their needs. The second is a lack of a viable plan of action. Let’s take a look at both of these.

Understanding your market

The problem with turning marketing on the first week of January is that we have all been overrun with marketing from the retail industry during the Christmas season and we could use a breather! There is a right and wrong time to approach your market. Think of it this way: during the Christmas season, we eat all kinds of foods that we only indulge in during that season. My grandmother was famous for her homemade candy, which she made by the skid load, or so it seemed. After our family Christmas gathering each year, she would divvy up all of her candy among her children and grandchildren. It would not be uncommon to bring home multiple pounds of grandma’s homemade candies. By the time you got to New Year’s Day, everyone was sick of grandma’s candy! It was good, but enough was enough! The same can happen with marketing. We are swimming in it during the holiday season. I often tell clients to hold off on launching new campaigns until at least the second week of January.

Executing a marketing campaign

The second problem is too often marketing departments try to execute marketing without having much of a plan. They might place ads, send out e-blasts, tweak their SEO, but none of that will amount to much of anything if you don’t have a strategic plan to guide you. At the center of effective marketing strategy is a campaign that carries a specific message to your target. Effective marketing campaigns all have these components:

• Promotion of a single, clearly understood brand
• An engaging slogan that catches the attention of your target market
• A reason to do business with you that differentiates you from your competition
• Your product/service’s best foot forward
• An easy action step for your customer to take
• Goals that are realistic and attainable
• Measurement of your campaign’s success or failure

If you try to market your brand without a marketing campaign, what you are doing is guessing at what will work. The problem with guessing is it has a horrible track record of success.

For most companies, marketing guesswork is not an option, because marketing has to work in order to drive sales. No sales, no business… it’s that simple. January is the time to turn marketing on. Where do you find your marketing at the beginning of year? It may be you need to shore up your customer relations and your strategies before you attempt to flip the marketing switch. Without an understanding of your target market and a plan of action, you will have a hard time getting the lights to come on.