June is coming. Every Aussie knows it’s the End of the Financial Year (EOFY). This is the perfect time for businesses to review their strategy, make the most out of the final month of this fiscal year as well as prepare for the new financial time. Don’t start your EOFY Plan without this Marketing Checklist.
As a Digital Marketing Agency working with hundreds of clients and the experiences in our own organization, Intelligence4Start totally understand the stress that business owners must endure, as they have to quickly and wisely decide where to spend the remaining budget before July, and develop an all-rounded Marketing plan that will work in the coming year. Not to mention the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an economic slowdown, leading to changes in every forecast and trend we planned at the beginning of 2020.
This marketing budget checklist will introduce everything business owners need to consider in marketing before welcoming the new fiscal year 2021-2022.
Find out what tax deduction and concessions you can claim
As long as the expenses directly related to earning your income, you can claim deductions. That’s what most business owners know about Tax in Australia. Therefore, spending the remaining budget wisely is the top priority for business at the moment.
Among thousands of deals, investing in Marketing is a bargain as its long-term benefits:
Doing marketing can increase your brand awareness, and this positive effect will last for a longer time.
A marketing campaign can boost sales and profits
Especially when Australia as well as the rest of the world is not totally COVID19-free, digital marketing is a crucial part of your Business Plan so that your business will not be disconnected from the customers while in lockdown.
Here are some suggestions for Marketing services that business owners can purchase and receive sustainable results:
Website set-up: Nowadays, it is hard to believe that a business can progress fast forward without a website, especially after COVID19. Lockdown and border closures have restricted customers from visiting physical stores. As a result, the website serves as the main contact point. If you haven’t set up your own website yet, June is the perfect time to do that.
Facebook Ads/ Google Ads: All that advertising you did this year? Claim it!
Following websites, Google Ads and Facebook Ads are deductible expenses for a business. Even though these expenses seem small, they can accumulate in the end.
If you have some extra budget to spend at the end of this financial year, use them for our 3-month Social Media packages. It can not only help you claim tax, but also drive more traffic for businesses, no matter where they operate online or have a physical location.
Review the Marketing last year
Evaluate the result using KPI
KPI is the benchmark to evaluate the success or failure of your marketing strategy in the past year. This provides you a clear indication of what you’ve done well, and what needs to improve in the following year.
Depending on the needs of businesses, the results for Marketing can vary. For example, if your business runs an Email campaign, then the expected outcome can relate to the Open rate, Click rate, and Conversion rate (for the whole campaign).
Review your SEO analytic
If you have a website, then SEO analytics will help to draw a general picture and let you know, what are the main sources of traffic to your websites. Most importantly, a business can know deeper insights about their customers, including Age, preferences, Location, usage behaviors, and what ultimately converts those visitors into customers.
Evaluate the Budget
Money is absolutely the fuel of the business. Firstly, you should look at the budget you set at the beginning of this fiscal year, and compare this number with the actual spending for Marketing activities. You will understand which campaigns or activities cost the most, and the proportion for them.
Reviewing the budget will help you adjust the budget for the next financial year and allocate the money more wisely.
Analyze the market
You are not doing business alone. Any turbulence on the market can interfere and change the result of your business heavily. Therefore, the Industry situation cannot be excluded when business owners plan a Marketing strategy. The market includes:
Industry situation: consider the external factors coming from Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal changes which may affect the needs and demands of the customers and business. The most notable example is the emergence of COVID19. The whole world economy is likely to shut down. Meanwhile, digital companies such as Zoom witnessed its revenue skyrocket throughout the fiscal year 2021due to the high demand for online meetings. As of June 2, Zoom had a market capitalization of $96 billion, compared to $40 billion a year earlier (Statista, 2021)
Competitors: Observing the competitors is another important thing to consider when planning the Marketing strategy for the next EOFY. It’s worth taking a second look at the competitors to gain insights into your current plan, analyze your business’ strengths and weaknesses, and define the Unique Selling Points to differentiate your offerings from the others.
Create your EOFY marketing plan
Now that you gather all the necessary information, the Marketing strategy for the next financial year 2021-2022 should be formed. Remember to include those sections in the EOFY Marketing plan:
Marketing Goals: it should align with your Business goal, as the ultimate purpose of marketing is to produce business results.
Time: How much time marketing campaigns in your strategy will take
Budget: Allocate your budget accordingly. There are many methods that you can use to spend money on the Marketing plan. Read more: How much should I spend on Marketing? Estimation from experts.
KPI: as mentioned above, this is the benchmark to let you know at the end of the Financial year how well your marketing strategy works.
As a new Financial is approaching, business owners should create a wise strategy, not only Marketing but Business plan as well to uplift their business and boost the profits. If you’re unsure of how to create a competitive advantage in a crowded market, it may be time to partner with a digital marketing agency, like Intelligence4Start.
