Annual marketing planning · Marketing
Next year's marketing should be planned around the months when your customers actually buy.
Your school opens admissions months before the new session, and the posts start in the week the seats are nearly gone. A jewellery shop wakes up to wedding season when competitors are already advertising. The budget gets spent, but never on the months that decide the year.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
Annual marketing planning is a written yearly plan that ties marketing goals to your sales target, with a calendar built around your own peak months. GullySales sets out audiences, channel mix, budget split, owners and review points, so your team knows what runs when and who is answerable for it.
GullySales writes the plan backwards from your sales target and your own calendar: the festive weeks, the admission window, the wedding months, the harvest, the budget and tax seasons, whichever apply to you. Each season gets goals, channels, owners and a review date.
This is the yearly plan, not the strategy or the money. If you still need to decide which buyers to chase and what to say, marketing and digital marketing strategy comes first. If the question is only how to split existing spend, marketing budget optimisation fits better. If the sales number itself is unsettled, annual revenue planning is the place to start.
Who it is for
This is written for you if these sound familiar.
- Schools, colleges and coaching centres whose enquiries bunch into one admissions window
- Jewellery, saree and furniture shops whose year turns on festive and wedding months
- Manufacturers and seed or agri-input sellers whose orders follow harvest, budget and tax seasons
- Clinics and hospitals planning health camps, awareness days and doctor visits through the year
- Owners who run marketing month by month and want one document the whole team follows
Not for
It is not the right fit if.
- A business that has not yet chosen its buyers or its offer. Start with the strategy, then plan the year.
- An owner who wants a posting schedule only. A content calendar is one page of this plan, not the plan.
- Anyone expecting a promise of leads, rankings or sales from a plan. A plan sets the work and the checks; it does not guarantee orders.
The problem
Does this sound like your business?
Common situations this work addresses.
“We start marketing after the season has started”
Creative, offers and approvals are still being argued about when the festive weeks arrive. The best days of the year go to catching up.
“Marketing and sales each have their own number”
Marketing reports posts and enquiries while the sales head is counting orders. Nobody can say the number of enquiries the year's target needs.
“The budget is spread evenly across twelve months”
A quiet month and a peak month receive the same amount. The channel that pays in October is starved while a weak one keeps its share.
“Nobody owns each activity”
The plan says run a campaign in March, but no one is named for the creative, the approvals or the enquiry replies. By then the owner is doing it all personally.
What we do
The work we can include.
Each deliverable and the purpose it serves. Your written scope confirms what is included, who is responsible, and what it costs.
Goals tied to the sales target
Marketing goals written against your orders or admissions target, with the enquiries and quotations that target needs. Gaps in your records are marked rather than filled with guesses.
Audience and offer sheet
The buyers or families the year is aimed at, and the offer each season carries. Your sales team checks it against real conversations.
Channel mix by season
Which channels run in which season and the job of each, such as search, WhatsApp, marketplace listings, dealer visits or events. Channels with no job are left out.
Annual calendar
A month-by-month calendar built around your own peaks, showing when preparation starts, when activity goes live and when enquiries are expected. Dates for festivals, exams and filing deadlines come from your records and the official sources, and you confirm them.
Budget split sheet
The share of spend for each channel and season, with a reserve for changes. GullySales time, media spend and production costs are shown on separate lines.
Owner and approval register
A named person for each activity, each approval and each enquiry reply, with a substitute for busy weeks. Claims and offers are signed off by you before use.
Review sheet
The figures compared at each review, from the baseline onward, and the decisions that review may take: continue, move spend, or stop an activity.
How the result is measured
- Enquiries by source against the enquiries the target needs
- Reply time to enquiries in each peak
- Qualified opportunities, quotations or admission applications by season
- Orders or enrolments traced to a recorded source
- Spend against the approved split for each channel and season
- Activities delivered on the calendar date by their named owner
Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.
Before you decide
Agree the work. Know how to judge it.
Annual marketing planning: use these checks to prepare, choose the scope, and review what changes.
Bring the right evidence
Bring a recent won order and an enquiry that went nowhere. Trace how each buyer found you, what they asked, and who handled the next step. A channel list alone will not explain the difference.
Make the scope clear
Choose one offer and one buyer group first. Agree which part needs attention: being found, getting a useful enquiry, or turning an enquiry into an order. Separate recommendations from the work required to carry them out.
Check the work in use
A useful plan names the first change, its owner, the evidence behind it, and the number that will show whether it worked. Ask what has deliberately been left out and why.
Know when to change course
If your team cannot answer the enquiries it already receives, improve that handover before buying more traffic. If the offer itself is unclear, test it with buyers before adding channels.
These are discussion points, not a fixed package. GullySales confirms the deliverables, responsibilities, fee, and term in writing after reading your brief and speaking with you.
How it works
How the annual marketing planning work runs
The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.
- 1
Brief and records
You send the requirements brief and your last year's enquiry, order or admission records. We agree in writing what the plan covers and which records are usable.
- 2
Peaks and targets
We mark the months that decide your year and set them beside the sales target. Your sales head confirms the enquiries and quotations each peak needs.
- 3
Audience, offer and channel choices
We draft the buyers, the seasonal offers and the channels for each season. You remove what your team cannot handle.
- 4
Budget and owners
The spend split and the owner register are written together, so no funded activity lacks a person. Your approval closes this step.
- 5
Calendar sign-off and handover
The final calendar goes to whoever runs each activity: your team, another agency, or GullySales under a separate written scope.
- 6
Review points
Results are set against the baseline and the plan's assumptions at each review point. Changes are recorded with the reason, and what GullySales does at reviews is agreed in writing.
Before you hire anyone
Do this first yourself.
Gather what the plan will be built from before you speak to anyone.
- List the three or four months in which your orders, admissions or bookings arrive, using last year's records.
- Write down next year's sales target and ask your sales head how many enquiries and quotations it needs.
- Pull last year's enquiries into one sheet with the source of each and what happened to it.
- Note what you spent on each channel last year and who ran it.
- Write the name of one person for each marketing activity you expect to run, and whether they have time.
Judge any provider
What to ask any provider of this service.
Useful whoever you choose, including us.
- How will you tie the plan to my sales target and not only to marketing activity?
- How do you decide which months get the most preparation and spend?
- Who is named as owner for each activity in the calendar, and what happens when that person is busy?
- What do you check at each seasonly review, and what decisions can it change?
- Which records will you need from me, and what will you do where they are missing?
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 0, foundation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2 · you are here
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
How is this different from marketing and digital marketing strategy?
When is marketing budget optimisation the better fit?
Do we need to start in January?
Do you give the budget as figures?
Will our team be able to follow the calendar?
What does it cost and how long does it take?
How long is the contract?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
By industry
Annual marketing planning, written for your industry.
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