Creating a digital marketing plan at the end of the year doesn’t always feel like the right moment, but it’s a great time to get started.
In December, teams are wrapping up campaigns, everyone’s eyeing the Christmas break, and there’s a natural sense of “we’ll sort next year.”
But why not at least get something prepared first?
In this blog post, we’ll share what a digital marketing plan is and how to best use one going into a new year.
What is a digital marketing plan?
Quick Answer: A digital marketing plan is essentially a roadmap. It takes everything a brand wants to achieve from their business strategy and translates it into specific, measurable actions across all the digital channels where the audience actually spends time, determining top-level objectives and key messages that will appear throughout the year’s marketing activities.
The best strategies are focused, detailed and have itemised goals that an organisation wants to achieve. A digital marketing plan, when complete, should go further than this and answer questions like:
- Which channels will we invest in, and why
- What specific content will we create, the format and when it will be created?
- How much budget goes to each initiative?
- What are we measuring to determine success?
- How will we know if it’s working?
A strong digital marketing plan matters
Digital marketing isn’t a set of spaced-out activities, but an interconnected system, and a strong digital marketing plan means all activities work together in harmony.
The content strategy feeds email and social media campaigns. These campaigns drive traffic to an organisation’s website. Then, their website content is optimised for the search queries their audience is typing and searching for.
Nothing exists in isolation, and that integration is what makes a digital marketing plan effective.
When planning starts earlier, organisations have the opportunity to get ahead and push themselves ahead of the competition in the New Year. It doesn’t have to mean getting everything prepared, but it’s a great way to get digital marketing activities started quickly, with less delay.
Organisations that utilise planning know their audience better because they’ve analysed the data. They know which channels drive results because they’ve reviewed the evidence, and they know what content will resonate because they’ve tested it.
They’re not guessing. And that is why a plan is important.
Start with what worked and review previous results
The evidence for what worked and what didn’t can be found in the analytics. And this can be used to create a digital marketing plan that works.
Where can we find Analytics?
Most organisations have data spread across multiple places, such as:
- Google Analytics and Google Search Console
- Email marketing platforms
- Social media insights
- Paid advertising dashboards
The challenge isn’t that the data doesn’t exist, it’s that it should be pulled together to take the most advantage of.
Website performance
Which pages attracted the most engaged visitors? What page converted the most? Did the content keep people reading, or did they lose interest?
Google Analytics 4 shows behaviour patterns, that organisations can use to find out more about their audience.
For Beech clients, we create monthly, bi-annual and annual data reports directly from Google Analytics and Google Search Console as part of our website support plans. We also have regular meetings with clients to go through the results together.
Content that resonated
Which blog posts, videos, or resources generated the most engagement, shares, or conversions?
More importantly, what topics did your audience want to learn about?
If a post about sustainable marketing practices attracted 10x more engagement than your product update, that tells you something important about your audience’s priorities. Integrate these themes into a digital marketing plan to fully understandwhere to focus activity next year.
Channel performance
Did the campaign last month work better on LinkedIn, Facebook, or even through Google Ads?
Not all marketing channels are created equal. Email might drive consistent, low-cost engagement. Paid social might generate quick wins but cost more. Organic search might take longer but build lasting momentum.
Through evaluating previous success, organisations can identify which channels actually work for their business, not generic best practices, and specifically, where they can find their customers.
By understanding all these insights, we can create the foundation of everything for a new year. When data shows that decision-makers engage most with strategic, long-form content, that’s where to invest. If it shows that younger audiences respond to video and social, that’s where the emphasis shifts.
For help understanding your digital marketing data, book a chat with a member of our team.
Building your new digital marketing plan
Using data, we can:
- Refine and understand an audience better
- Determine whether this year was more or less successful than the previous year
- Evaluate the impact of new technologies, for example, how AI has influenced digital marketing and Generative Experience Optimisation (GEO)
- Compare our success to that of competitors
This allows us to then create a plan centred around the right information, allowing decisions such as the tools or channels we use, and how we optimise content going forward, to be simpler, quicker choices. All of this then feeds into a digital marketing plan that’s ready for a new year.
Step 1: Establish your core channels (and why)
Most organisations try to be everywhere, and it can be time-consuming. A strong digital marketing plan identifies the core channels where a specific audience actually spends time, then commits real resources to each.
This could include:
- Organic search (GEO and SEO optimisation): If there is time to build momentum, SEO becomes a core channel. It costs less than paid channels but usually takes longer to show results. Utilising Generative Experience Optimisation, or GEO, also means this channel can be beneficial for appearing in the AI Overview and other AI-generated responses.
- Email marketing: With a dedicated audience list, email creates direct, owned-channel communication. No algorithm changes, no platform restrictions. All that’s needed is to make sure a mailing list is well optimised, then create campaigns that target the right people following best practices.
- Social media (Organic and paid): Building momentum on social media helps establish a brand across various key channels where people spend their time online. Plus, if there’s a need for more targeted results, paid advertising offers a chance to boost that visibility further.
- Content marketing (blogs, videos, resources): This supports all other channels. Great content attracts organic search traffic, gives visitors and a brand something to share on social, and provides value that builds trust over time.
Step 2: Define what content actually looks like in a New Year
Once channels are chosen, the next question is “What do we create?”
This is where a digital marketing plan becomes fine-tuned and tactical, while staying aligned to strategy.
- Plan a social media calendar
- Choose specific email marketing campaigns, rather than sporadic sends
- Regularly plan blog posts and website updates to keep content fresh
- Utilise different types of content, for example, trying video
- Identify trends and relevant content that could be created
It’s also essential that brands remember to optimise existing content alongside the new materials they’re creating. Not only does it suggest activity in the eyes of search engines, but it also helps brands keep their existing content relevant and useful to audiences, which are important ranking factors in Google.
Step 3: Make everything align with the customer journey
Many organisations miss an opportunity by creating content without thinking about where in the customer journey it lands.
A person encountering a brand for the first time needs different content than someone already considering buying. The early-stage prospect wants education and context. The ready-to-buy prospect wants reassurance, proof, and next steps.
And it’s the organisation’s job to reassure their customer, regardless of the stage they’re at.
A digital marketing plan maps content across this journey:
- Awareness stage: Blog posts, videos, and social content that answer broad questions and build credibility
- Consideration stage: In-depth guides, webinars, case studies, and detailed resources that help prospects evaluate options
- Decision stage: Product pages, comparison content, testimonials, and clear calls to action that help people choose the right services
Reviewing previous data will be a huge help to determine where customers are coming from and how they make their decisions once they’ve found the brand they’re interested in. It reveals which types of content moved people through this journey, so use that evidence to build your next digital marketing plan.
Be ready for a new year with a new digital marketing plan
The organisations with an advantage over their competitors don’t wait until the middle of January to get started.
Instead, they audited their previous data, identified opportunities and goals, and turned all of their preparations into a digital marketing plan.
And because of this, they can enter a new year with clarity.
The question isn’t really “should we build a digital marketing plan?” It’s “when are we going to start?” Because every week you wait is a week you could be getting website, social media content, email campaigns and more prepared.
If you’re ready to build your 2026 plan, or want expert guidance on what’s possible, we’re here to help!
Book a time that works for you to discuss your next goals and how to get there.