6/12/2013

Forecasting Tips For Your Social Media Department

Forecasting Tips For Your Social Media Department:
from Business 2 Community 
From finance to marketing, forecasting is a challenging yet necessary exercise for any business unit. Departmental forecasts look may look very different on the surface, but there are many underlying similarities of the forecasting process – business needs are evaluated, goals are set and resources are distributed.
Show your CMO that you understand the ‘big picture’ of the organization by developing a well-thought out marketing department forecast. Combine your report with The Automated Social Media Scorecard to add a simple and effective mechanism for accountability in a scorecard format that your executives will love. Completing a well thought out forecast will earn the trust, influence and budgets from your organization’s marketing department.
Here are a few tips for getting started on your marketing forecast.
Start with what you owe the business
When creating projections, Entrepreneur Magazine says to “start with expenses, not revenue”. This means that before you start creating goals you must first analyze the ‘bills’ that you already owe.
For your digital marketing department, this means starting with exactly what is expected from you at a high level in terms of leads, conversions, website traffic or other sales-related metrics. Starting with these numbers will set the stage for planning goals that drive these metrics in social media such as follower base growth, link click-throughs and shares.
Past performance indicates future success
After you understand what you owe the business, then you can start planning what it takes to win. As with just about anything else in business, past performance is the best indicator of future success. Analyze past performance from your strategies and tactics. Measure exactly how much value was driven from each strategy and how you expect it to continue into the future.
Plan for the worst while preparing for the best
Inc Magazine suggests to develop worst case and best case scenarios adding, ”We try to walk the fine line of making sure we are profitable if the worst case comes true, but also have enough product and staff to support the best case predictions”. Taking this approach will allow you to stay conservative and prepare for the worst while showing upper management that you are also very confident and preparing for the best case scenario.
Examples of Marketing Forecasting
Marketo’s Whitepaper on Marketing Forecasting lays out the value, process and examples of marketing forecasts. The paper provides:

  • A methodology that defines revenue stage cycles
  • Measurements and incentives to encourage trust, accuracy and accountability
  • Tools to automate the effort as much as possible
No matter what your place may be in the organization, a data-driven and well thought out forecast will help you earn credibility, trust and budgets within your organization. Use the resources and information listed above to develop your own social media marketing forecast.
Image credit: http://www.gdargaud.net

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