Q1 is wrapping up, can you believe that? I often marvel at how quickly time flies. Just this weekend I heard my fourteen year old’s voice across the house and as he rounded a corner I was sure I was going to see this little boy about 3 ft tall come into the room, but BLAM there was a young man almost as tall as myself. If you aren’t watching, time sure does move faster than I’m comfortable with :).
Now that we are in our final few weeks of the first quarter, it’s not only time to review our quarterly plans but also get ready for the next quarter. As you can probably tell, I am a planner. I’m not organized by nature, so planning, tasks lists, checklists and the like are my bread and butter tools that I rely on every single day to keep things moving forward. It’s important to be sure you know how you have done in the quarter prior and what you need to do in the following quarter to kick things up a notch and reach your goals.
In order to provide our clients with a high level client experience, and ensure that their programs reach their potential, we make sure that our plans include 12 major areas. I’d like to outline 6 here:
- Sales Forecast – without knowing where you need to get, how will you know what you need to get there?
- Affiliate Communication Plan – knowing what, when, where, and how you will be communicating with affiliates is vital.
- Merchandising Calendar – Do you know what products, categories and promotions you will have available to your affiliates? Do you have enough lead time for them to promote?
- Creative – Will you need seasonal or promotional creative?
- Activation Targets – Who is in your program and not producing? This can be the biggest area of opportunity for any program.
- Consumer Promotion Calendar – What consumer promotions will you have available for affiliates to promote?
Not only do we walk through these and at least 6 others for each of our clients, but we also guide and teach these items and more in our MyAffiliateCoach training and mentoring for affiliate managers curriculum.
Are you getting ready for your next quarterly plan?
