Successful marketing is based on your ability to continuously improve your efforts on a year by year basis. This means that now that 2018 has come to an end, you’ll want to take into account the previous year’s marketing successes and failures as well as new trends and needs when preparing your marketing strategy for 2019. The following are the steps that you should take to do just that:

1. Review your 2018 marketing strategy and tactics

Start by looking back at what your marketing goals were for 2018 and whether or not you were able to achieve them. Take a careful look at the various tactics that you implemented to determine which ones had a positive effect on the achievement of your goals and which ones fell short. You should use what you’ve learned to craft your new marketing strategy.

2. Review who your target audience is

Odds are you already have a good idea of who your target audience is, especially if you believe that your marketing efforts in 2018 were successful overall. However, audiences change over time. Make sure that you review your target audience and your buyer personas. You’ll want to make sure that you know exactly who you’re trying to reach as this will help to drive the different tactics that you implement this year (such as your content strategy and your social strategy).

3. Create new SMART goals for the year

You can’t have a marketing strategy without marketing goals or else you’ll have no idea whether your strategy is performing successfully or not. To make sure that you can judge the performance of your goals, make sure that they are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely). You can use what you’ve learned about the previous year’s goals (whether you achieved them or not and how realistic they were) to create this year’s.

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4. Determine how you will achieve those goals

Once you’ve set your goals, begin coming up with ideas for how you can achieve them. You may want to reuse some of the same tactics you used last year, especially if they were effective. Those that did not work need to be replaced by new tactics. A good way to brainstorm new tactics is by looking at some of the recent marketing trends as well as marketing tactics suggestions made by industry professionals for this year.

5. Establish your marketing budget

Make sure that you establish your budget and take note of your resources before you begin creating your marketing plan. You may not be able to implement all of the tactics you’ve thought of–at least not right away, which means you’ll need to prioritize your strategy.

6. Create your marketing plan

Once you’ve taken into account your budget, begin crafting your marketing plan. One of the best ways to do this is by dividing the year into months and listing what new tactics you want to implement on a month by month basis and which ones you want to continue throughout the year. This gives you a visual representation of all of the marketing activities you’re committing to every month that will give you an idea of whether it’s realistic or not.

7. Execute your marketing strategy

There’s no point in having a marketing plan if you don’t execute it. Schedule the different marketing activities that you’ve planned out so that you can follow your plan throughout the year.

8. Continually review your marketing strategy throughout the year

Don’t just blindly follow your marketing plan if it’s obviously failing. One of the huge benefits of inbound marketing is that you can make use of analytics to track the performance of various tactics, using your goals as benchmarks. If something’s not working, find a way to adjust your efforts or replace it with a different tactic so that you’re not wasting valuable resources. This ensures that your plan is not only effective, but efficiently executed as well.

Use these steps to learn from the success and failures of the previous year’s marketing efforts to put into place an effective marketing strategy that will achieve your goals in 2019.

Marketing strategies have been focusing on millennial wants, needs and habits for years now — and for good reason. Millennials recently overtook baby boomers as the biggest generation. However, it won’t be long until the next generation — generation Z — comes to the forefront. As such, it’s important that you begin identifying effective generation Z marketing strategies that will help you continue to reach your target audience well into the future. The following are four generation Z marketing strategies you should begin implementing now:

1. Emphasize Mobile Marketing

Generation Z is the first generation to have grown up during the smartphone era. Most of them use the smartphone more than any other device. At this point, making sure all of your content is mobile-friendly should be a given. However, you should also begin designing marketing campaigns that specifically revolve around mobile marketing, such as through the use of mobile apps and mobile-based social platforms, such as Instagram.

2. Be Active On Social Media

Like smartphones, few members of generation Z will know what it was like before the age of social media. They use social media more than anything else in order to learn about brands and the products or services that they offer. In fact, more than 51 percent of Generation Z use social networks when researching brands and products, compared to 45 percent of millennials.

However, while you’ll still be able to find Generation Z on social networks like Facebook, they tend to prefer networks that their parents aren’t on, such as Snapchat, and often use more niche platforms as well. They’re also a bit more careful in how they engage having learned from the previous generation’s social media mishaps.

3. Create Video Content

Generation Z grew up on streaming video. They consume content on YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Vimeo and more on a daily basis, which means that short-form video content is one of the best ways to reach them. Video content is also no longer as expensive to produce as it once was. As you adjust your content marketing strategy, you should begin emphasizing video content if you plan to attract audience members from generation Z.

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4. Personalize Your Interactions

Generation Z has spent a large part of their lives online, which means that the usual marketing gimmicks aren’t going to phase them. They are only going to engage with brands that they believe to be authentic. The best way to show authenticity and to stand out from the crowd is to personalize your interactions. This can be done by treating them like individuals instead of marketing stats, communicating directly with them via social media, communicating your message quickly and clearly, and providing helpful and informative content that’s also entertaining and personable.

Not only are these effective generation Z marketing strategies, they’re strong long-term strategies in general that you should begin implementing now. By using these generation Z marketing strategies, you will help position your brand for success even once generation Z eventually takes over as your largest audience.