Over the first quarter of 2022, it should of become crystal clear that brand-based New Year’s resolutions are about as effective as any other New Year’s Resolution. 

In other words, if you entered 2022 expecting to make wide-sweeping changes by the seat of your pants because the calendar flipped, you’re not setting your organization up for success. 

How you enter any new year should be planned well in advance and requires thoughtful analysis of the previous 12 months’ results. Then, you can keep things fluid throughout the proceeding 365 days, making adjustments when necessary and sticking with what works. 

First and Foremost, Take a Deep Dive into Last Year When Entering a New Year

Did you accomplish your goals and objectives for last year? 

Provided you came up short on your goals, analyze the missteps made and assess how to strengthen those weaknesses. The more specific you can be, the better. Specifically, there’s a world of difference between one big deal falling through and missing the mark on all fronts.

For Goose Digital, we’re happy to announce that we reached our sales goals last year. That said, we need to assess if our objectives were achieved how we intended or went in a different direction. 

Examining Last Year’s Sales Trajectory

At Goose Digital, we also examine our sales trajectory for the previous year. We review whether we had a good year all around, a solid Q4, or if we started the year strong and limped into 2022.

Be mindful of marketing attribution and what campaigns drove the most sales. 

Know where your biggest deals came from and the make-up of those deals. For instance, identify whether sales were driven by an inbound search lead, webinar, or another multi-touch piece that led to your biggest transactions, etc.

From there, you need to assess what you ended up with based on product fit and the types of customers you’re dealing with. To this point, you might find out 30% of your sales came from outside your ideal customer profile (ICP). In which case, decide whether a new target ICP is in your company’s marketing crosshairs.

In the above instance, where many sales came outside your ICP, it might just be the luck of the draw and it could be better to not put much stock into it. However, you’ll only figure that out by thoroughly looking into the data and insights behind these deals.

Missed Opportunities Shouldn’t Be Cast Aside

Examine the big deals that fell through with your target ICP. You might identify that these were excellent pipeline opportunities, meaning your marketing program worked well but there was a breakdown in handling the rest of the transaction. 

The above result might mean your sales team is still learning to navigate marketing-driven deals instead of referrals (where goodwill is already baked in). 

All the same, the campaigns still attracted the right kinds of business. That’s a positive takeaway and a potentially quick fix to aid in your future growth.  

Letting Sales Inform Marketing

Keeping up with the theme of sales and marketing working together harmoniously, a sales team can function as an excellent research source for marketers. 

Especially when using a CRM, salespeople can record valuable insights easily made available to marketers that otherwise wouldn’t be available. After all, salespeople have more in-depth conversations with customers, offering them a magnifying glass in the thought processes of your prospects.

This level of information from the previous year helps you find new opportunities and trends. From there, you can delve into previously untapped marketing space heading into a new year.

Want to learn more about using the past to shape a thriving future? Contact Goose Digital today to learn more about how we can help.