How to plan your marketing for the new financial year

(so it supports your business goals)

As the new financial year approaches, most businesses start turning their attention to what the next 12 months will look like.

Revenue targets are set, growth plans are discussed, and new opportunities identified.

Somewhere in that process, marketing usually comes into the conversation as well - often as a list of things to “do more of”:

Post more regularly. Run some ads. Be more consistent.

While those intentions are valid, they don’t always lead to better outcomes. In many cases, marketing ends up becoming a series of disconnected activities, rather than something that meaningfully supports the direction of the business.

The reality is, marketing on its own doesn’t drive results. It only becomes effective when it is clearly aligned with what the business is trying to achieve.

So rather than asking, “What should we be doing with our marketing this year?”, a more useful question is:

“How do we make our marketing support the outcomes we actually want as a business?”

1. Start with your high-level business objectives, not your marketing plan

Before thinking about platforms, content or campaigns, it’s important to get clear on what success actually looks like for the business, for the year ahead.

This might include your revenue targets, the type of work you want to win more of, or the kinds of clients and projects you want to move towards.

Without that clarity, it becomes very difficult for marketing to have any real direction. When the goals are defined first, marketing activities can then be shaped to support them in a much more intentional way.

2. Work backwards from how work is won in your business

In construction, engineering and industrial businesses, new work rarely comes from a single source. Often, it is driven by a combination of referrals, existing relationships, repeat business, and word of mouth.

While it’s not ideal to rely solely on these channels (they can’t always be planned or scaled predictably), your online presence plays an important supporting role when it comes to validation during your prospect’s decision-making process.

Understanding this is critical, because it changes the role marketing needs to play.

Rather than trying to replace how leads are generated, effective marketing should add to and strengthen them, by reinforcing your credibility and ensuring your business stays top of mind.

3. Focus on the right activities, not more activities

A common trap when planning for the year ahead is trying to do too much.

Adding more platforms, more campaigns, and more moving parts, often creates complexity without necessarily improving results. In most cases, a better approach is to focus on a small number of key activities that directly support your goals, and then executing those cleanly and consistently.

That might include consistent content to build and maintain visibility over time, targeted seasonal campaigns, regular communication with your network, and ongoing refinement of your messaging and positioning.

The aim is not necessarily to be everywhere, but to be deliberate and consistent in the areas that matter most.

4. Make sure marketing and sales are working together

Another area where we often see opportunity is in the alignment between marketing and sales.

If marketing is communicating one message, but sales conversations are heading in a different direction, the inconsistency creates friction and confusion, which impacts how the business is perceived by the market.

Additionally, if enquiries and leads are generated and no sales follow-ups made afterwards, the result is simple – opportunities are lost due to a lack of follow-up and conversion.

Sales professionals are often in more direct contact with the market, and feeding back insights, trends and conditions enables marketing to adjust accordingly, keeping messaging timely and relevant.

When the two are aligned, the impact is significant. Conversations become more meaningful, trust builds more quickly, and opportunities tend to move through the pipeline with greater ease.

5. Execution is where most plans fall over

A marketing plan does not need to be complex to be effective. In fact, overly detailed plans are often the hardest to maintain.

What tends to work best is something clear and practical: a plan that outlines your goals, your key focus areas, and what activity will take place across each month or quarter.

Just as importantly, there should be clarity around who is responsible for what, so that execution doesn’t fall through the cracks.

Because the biggest reason a plan fails, more often than not, is quite simple:

It isn’t executed.

Final thought

The businesses that get the most out of their marketing are not necessarily the ones doing the most.

They are the ones where marketing is clearly connected to the bigger picture, and where activity is guided by a defined direction rather than mere good intentions.

When marketing is aligned with business goals, it becomes a lot more than a set of tasks. It becomes a tool that supports growth in a meaningful and measurable way.

If you’re planning for the new financial year and want to sense-check whether your marketing is aligned with your business goals, we’re always happy to take a look and offer some direction.