Episode 29: 2023 Planning
with Christina Garnett
Welcome to the next episode of The CMA Soulmate Newsletter where 700 marketers get better at building Customer Marketing programs and strengthening relationships with customers in less than 5 minutes.
So I can plan better for 2023, I thought I would ask you all if you would like me to change the day this newsletter hits your inbox.
We are no strangers to planning in uncertainty. As we approach 2023, a different flavor of uncertainty creeps in. Global unrest, soaring inflation, and an economic slowdown. 😩
To come out on top, you’ll need to take a surgical approach to planning. That’s why I invited Christina Garnett, Principal Marketing Manager at Hubspot, as my special guest this week. We will be helping you strategically plan for next year. Of course a lot of this will be dependent on your company's goals but we have the resources to get ya going. This is a long episode so bear with us.
Business alignment of goals
Christina: With the current economic climate, it’s necessary to expect that leadership will want to see some goals tied to revenue (net new and retention). It’s easy to see that so much of our work is making customers feel appreciated and wanted. We run on vibes, but to prove business impact, we have to support those vibes with data. What can we measure based on what our customers do because of those vibes?
Do they continue as a customer even if competitors approach them with a better feature or price?
Do they upgrade and become more invested in the company?
Do they use word of mouth to build trust in your brand and influence others to become customers?
In planning for 2023, how are you looking at growth and retention? Let’s dive in…
Growth (net new):
How are your customer marketing activities influencing future deals? (Referrals, References, Case Studies, Reviews)
Are you working with sales to learn more about how your work can enable theirs? (1:1’s, Jumping on team meetings, syncing with team leads, showing them last years influence numbers)
Do you know what the current challenges are for closing deals? (Ex. Lack of urgency)
How can your current customers play a role? 👆 (Video testimonials on why they should not wait to purchase)
Do you work with other departments who are tied to revenue? (Hitch your wagon to the Account Management Team and create an ABM upsell campaign for upcoming renewals)
Retention:
What customer marketing activations create the most engagement from your customers? (Case studies, events, swag)
Do you know what your customer retention numbers currently are and if there is a difference between customers you engage with and those you don’t?
To drill down specificity of these goals, use OKRs to showcase your objectives and key results:
OKRs (Objectives Key Results)
OKRs are a great way to drive down to get the root of what you really want to achieve instead of just focusing on numbers.
Consider what you want to happen.
What are the objectives you want to achieve next year? Next quarter?
What does success look like for those things? What key results do we want to see happen?
Building this out will help you evaluate not only what goals you want to achieve, but what specific behaviors and milestones need to occur for success to be seen as achieved.
From here, continue to reverse engineer.
Just like with planning a trip, you know where you are and you know where you want to get to. Planning is creating the map of how you get from point a to point b.
If you know what key results you want to see happen, think about all the moving pieces that will have to happen to make that possible.
List which of these things you can control or influence.
→ Determine what milestones you need to occur.
→ What behavior(s) needs to happen for these milestones to occur?
→ What current triggers are needed to encourage these behaviors?
→ Is there friction currently in the behavior we want people to do? Does the friction prevent the triggers from being effective?
→ Remove as much friction as possible
Leslie: How I like to start planning for the year is to first execute a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It’s a technique for assessing these four aspects of your business. However, I tweak it and perform the analysis on my department. The clearer the purpose, the more effective and actionable the SWOT analysis results are likely to be.
This will help you to analyze what your department does best now, and to devise a successful strategy for the upcoming year. SWOT can also uncover areas of the adjacent teams that are holding you back.
Some examples of what we (CMA) would use a SWOT analysis for are:
Assessing where your department stands today
Should we double down on the things are are working
Deciding where to focus despite blockers or BECAUSE of blockers
Improving a specific program
Here is the SWOT template. Below are some sample questions to think about to get you started.
Strengths
What do our customers participate the most in?
What are we super efficient at?
What are our top programs?
What can we optimize?
What makes us stand out?
Weaknesses
Where do we lack efficiency?
Where are we wasting money?
Where are we wasting time and resources?
How do we showcase ROI of department?
Where do we lose our customers in the onboarding process?
Opportunities [keep in mind these are growth areas]
What new programs could we create?
What would help efficiency?
Any new emerging trends? (Ex. Doing something different with case studies)
What new technology could we use?
How/where could we grow?
Do our strengths open up new opportunities to scale?
Threats
What changes are occurring in CMA?
What department is blocking you the most?
What technologies need to be replaced?
Platform issues?
What departments are missing in the org? (ex. content, design team)
Do we have a way to measure the success of our programs?
Hope you have as much fun as me with it.
Completing a SWOT analysis is just the first step. It’s important to then take the time to identify your courses of action. It should be crystal clear after all the swot’ing 🤣
Think of things like: Which opportunities should we pursue? How can we use our strengths to help us succeed? Which weaknesses can be worked on? What blockers should we escalate?
Christina: You have your goals, your OKRs, and your SWOT analysis.
Not sure where to go from here? Are you building an advocacy program from scratch? Check out this advocacy canvas (based on the Community Canvas).
In tandem with the advocacy canvas, you’ll want to think about the journey your advocates will go through during your program. Sharing your insights in this advocacy journey map will help you craft a holistic view of your advocates, their motivations, behaviors, triggers, and friction points.
Delight:
How do you know what you are offering holds real value for your advocates?
To get started ask yourself the following questions:
What can you offer that no other company can offer?
Do you have a budget?
Have you asked/determined what motivates your advocates?
What kind of free but priceless options are available (behind the scenes access, meetings with internal teams/leadership, thought leadership opportunities)
One way to think of this is through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy. Here is a version based on delight.
Leslie: 👆 This is great for anyone interviewing or having to educate the executives on why the hell they hired us. I’d guess that these start ups on cruising in survival mode.
Okay by now you are more than ready to present BUT you’re staring at a blank slide deck. Ugh! No worries, I got your back.
I’m assuming some of you already have this built out and yours is way prettier than mine but here is a slide deck that I used last year. I had to delete a bit of info but I filled in some areas with examples.
Let me walk you through it.
Slide 2 - Not sure if you all have a mission statement and vision for your department but I like starting the preso with that.
Slide 4 - Enter your company's OKRs.
Slide 6 - I love pillars and themes on how my work ties back to the company OKRs. It’s clean and clear.
Slides 7-9 - I break down what programs I will tackle in 2023 and the forecasted outcome/revenue. Your boss will love this but an executive not so much. You need a TLDR version for them. Pick 3 main programs, 3 main metrics and 3 potential blockers.
Slide 10-13 - Break down your programs by quarter. This helps me a ton when I am planning out my future quarterly OKRs. You have already thought it through so far in advance that it’s just plug n play.
The last slide was my first attempt at making a case for headcount. First, you lay out the areas of work that you cover. Yes, I’m covering Customer Marketing, Advocacy, and Community. I like to highlight the percentage of time each area takes me. This helps show that I am working over capacity. Then I list out my programs in those areas and I highlight in yellow what is new for next year. Point being “If you want me to execute these additional programs, we need to staff up bro!” ← Say it just like that 🤣
But Leslie, all the adjacent teams keep throwing new projects my way!!! Here is how you handle that:
Bottom line - You need to be able to point to anything you’re doing and answer “Why” to your C-Suite.
-Why are you tracking that as a KPI now?
-Why did you pick that program to prioritize over the other?
-Why are you asking for that much budget when it wasn’t planned?
If you don’t have a good answer and can’t tie it back to the company OKRs then you have to push back, prioritize, and forecast when you can help. OR tie the ask into an existing program.
Prove that you are in control by eliminating “random acts of Customer Marketing”.
Can’t think of a better place to end. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Love your CMA Soulmate,
Leslie
P.S. - Special thanks to Christina Garnett. You are a lovely human and I love our blossoming friendship.
P.S.S. - Here is a Quarterly Customer Marketing Plan template by Lyla Rozelle that is very helpful as well.
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