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Avoiding friction points is often discussed as specific to user experience. And that is indeed useful in marketing optimization. But, 'tis the season for thinking about next year before this year is even over!
So, this article is going to focus on reducing friction within your annual planning for Marketing and Sales enablement. Your future self will thank you.
Pondering how you will make order out of the swirl of initiatives, priorities, and backlog items feels overwhelming. We're being real here, so know that you are not alone. Even the people posting marketing hacks on LinkedIn are still figuring things out and continually improving.
Narrow your scope to reduce friction
Having limitless possibilities for turning needs and wants into action is overwhelming—for everyone. But you don't have to make a year's worth of decisions in 1-2 months.
Instead, figure out how to narrow your scope with a framework, a strategy for what you are trying to accomplish, and some choices on potential paths to navigate for making progress against that strategy.
You want to shift from boiling the ocean to heating a tea kettle on the regular.
Let's say you are a small but mighty marketing team, and being more efficient is a big focus for 2024. You want to use AI tools to save time on day-to-day work to free up more time for strategic work. Great!
Do you need to decide all the specific ways you will do that next year? No! Why?
Because the pace of AI tool development and iteration—especially through tools adopting ChatGPT or LLM capabilities—is lightning-fast. You cannot possibly predict what will still be useful and reliable six months from now, let alone one year.
Instead, get more specific about your intended outcome. Create an approach to test out tools and decide whether to adopt them. Include considerations on areas where AI and LLM tools currently perform well (summarizing info, idea generation, adjusting tone on copy) and where they're still on a learning curve (fact-based information, dated knowledge base, etc.). The rapid change happening in the AI space right now means you should probably build in some checkpoints to assess what's working and what's not.
AI tooling is likely to become even more useful as product companies incorporate it to accomplish specific tasks in imminently useful but narrow-in-scope ways. Adobe is already knocking it out of the park with the new editing tools in Photoshop. SEO tools are jumping on board to speed up repetitive content tasks.
Need help sussing out where to focus your energies? Build this into your plan: MarketingProfs is offering an AI for Digital Marketers course in early 2024.
Set your course with a marketing road map
Prepping for specific Marketing and Sales enablement initiatives feels challenging because Sales itself is dynamic. Something that worked a few months ago may fall flat all of a sudden. How do you account for changes you can't predict?
The trick is being specific and aligned on strategy but more flexible about individual initiatives.
A road map approach can provide enough organizing structure to give shape to planned quarterly initiatives as well as allow for adjusting by not getting too invested in detailed planning ahead of time.
You can't plan while ignoring reality. You also don't want the utter chaos that is flying by the seat of your pants. Balance is the guiding principle for an effective marketing road map.
More tips for planning an effective road map:
Get everyone on board. Align with stakeholders on strategy, outcome-based goals, and proposed initiatives to make forward movement. An initiative is an idea that is tied to an outcome but not weighed down by campaign-level details.
Sort out your initiatives into quarterly buckets. I know... you want to get more specific, and so does everyone else. You will. But start with quarterly buckets to give your future self flexibility.
Be realistic. If you're internally driven and self-aware, you likely want to accomplish a lot. But stuff happens, so don't overload yourself or others with impossible-to-meet demands.
Imagine possibilities. For each initiative, ideate on a few threads. Those aren't set-in-stone commitments. Think of them as campaign concepts. You're getting more specific while also staying flexible.
Be open to change. Road maps are great for planning, but we all know the true value in map apps lies in their ability to monitor traffic and recommend alternate routes. You will change things along the way as the environment or situation develops. And that's OK.
Make your plan work by mapping alternate routes
As you sync with partners, you'll refer back to the broader marketing road map and link it to current campaigns and activities that support specific initiatives. Changes may be driven by a shifting environment, or you may discover a new opportunity that's better suited to your purpose.
Such an approach gives you something to hang your hat on. And it makes things easier to tie together. Smaller activities ladder up to multimonth initiatives. Initiatives are how you make forward progress toward outcome-based goals.
I started my career in marketing for theater. Here's a phrase that has long resonated with me: "Make it work." Made famous by Tim Gunn on Project Runway, it's not perfect, but it is focused on forward momentum, problem-solving, and trying new things. It's about being OK letting go of time-intensive activities that don't add value.
A "make it work" mindset is about pragmatic optimism, and we need that in Marketing and Sales enablement. Because things that worked even five years ago are not working anymore.
But we can, and will, find a better way.
More Resources on Marketing Planning and Road Maps
Reduce Friction With a Yearend Marketing Road Map for Smooth Sailing in 2024
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cathy Colliver is the marketing director at Test Double, a software consulting agency. She loves simplifying challenges, and her marketing career spans five industries. Cathy volunteers in arts and education.
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