It is obvious that the digital world is here to stay and that digital transformation is necessary in order for your business to survive and grow. However, succeeding in the digital world is not as easy as was 10 years ago.
Competition is fierce, the attention of our target audience is more and more expensive, so what to do? Constantly investing in more traffic to our web pages is becoming very expensive, but at the same time inevitable.
Without planning it is highly unlikely we will achieve results
However many companies still run their projects without a clear plan.
Many of them are too occupied with running on the hamster wheel instead of stepping a step back and looking at their business from the bird’s eyes perspective.
It is not easy to do this for the first time, but it is very rewarding after you see the first results.
There are many elements which we must consider in order for our project to succeed
Today I would like to propose a simple planning model that works efficiently if we take time to analyze the results of the previous month (KPIs) and define a new monthly plan based on facts and figures, trying to avoid subjective conclusions.
The proposed planning model consists of 3 elements we must consider.
1.) Monthly budget plan
- Total budget (calculated according to results of previous month/year)
- Budget for each specific channel
- Scaling budget (ready to be invested in case of unexpected opportunities)
2.) Monthly sales plan
- Total target revenue
- Target revenue per channel
- Target CPO (cost per order in %) and min./max CPO
- Target ROI (Return on investment %) and min./max. ROI
3.) Monthly communication plan
- The main topic of the month
- Defined offers (products or services we would like to promote)
- Special monthly offers or campaigns (black Friday, etc.)
- Daily communication plan (broken down for each channel)
- Content plan (Copywriting, graphics, videos)
Monthly planning is a cycle that should be practiced on all the levels inside of the organization. Each new plan should start with an objective analysis of results from the previous month and according to these results, we should define a clear and action-oriented plan.
Zaključek
Only by using regular monthly planning can we develop the right awareness and understanding of what works and what does not and this is what we call the process of optimization.
It is important that every company slowly develops its own method which works for them, however, some elements of monthly planning will always stay present.