Tags Keep Planned Activity Connected to Strategic Priorities

Why Tags Matter

Tags do more than classify Initiatives and Tactics. They create a through line between your strategic priorities, the audiences you need to reach, and the marketing activity being planned to advance them.

Annum includes default Tags for journey-based Marketing Objectives and Audiences so teams can build that strategic context into the plan from the start.

Every Initiative and Tactic should be tagged with the journey-based Marketing Objective it supports and the Audience it is intended to influence, engage, or support. Applying these Tags consistently helps prevent disconnected or random acts of marketing by making the strategic purpose behind planned activity visible.

See How Your Plan Supports Your Priorities

Once Initiatives and Tactics are tagged, Tags become Filters that let you look across campaigns, channels, and time periods to answer questions such as:

• What are we doing to support this Marketing Objective?
• What activity are we planning for this Audience?
• Are multiple channels working together to support the same priority?
• Do we have enough activity across the customer journey?
• Are there gaps, overlaps, or areas receiving disproportionate attention?
• Are different campaigns and Initiatives collectively supporting our strategic priorities?

Instead of evaluating campaigns and channels in isolation, you can see cross-campaign and cross-channel coverage of the priorities that matter most.

This makes Tags an important part of keeping strategy connected to planning: strategic priorities are reflected through Marketing Objectives and Audiences, applied to the Initiatives and Tactics intended to advance them, and then used to evaluate the integrated plan.

Start with Marketing Objectives and Audiences

Annum provides default Tags for two foundational dimensions of marketing strategy:

Marketing Objectives define what marketing needs to change or influence to help achieve broader business goals. Annum’s eight journey-based Marketing Objectives provide a common framework for planning from Awareness through Advocacy.

Audience Tags identify the people and organizations marketing and communications need to reach, influence, engage, or support.

These defaults give teams a practical starting point and can be customized to reflect your organization’s strategic priorities and planning approach.

Want to learn more about setting marketing objectives and establishing audiences?

Explore:

The 8 Journey-Based Marketing Objectives: A Framework for Planning Marketing From Awareness Through Advocacy →

Audience Strategy: Define the People Your Marketing and Communications Need to Reach →

Add Other Tags Where They Improve Planning

Marketing Objectives and Audiences establish the strategic foundation, but Tags can also be used for other dimensions that matter to your organization, such as:

• Customer journey phases
• Regions or markets
• Business units
• Products or product categories
• Key messages
• Content pillars
• Partners or accounts
• Other strategic priorities

The goal is not to tag everything possible. Use Tags when a category will help your team plan, filter, evaluate, or focus the marketing plan in a meaningful way.

Once Tags are set up in your Plan, they can be applied to Initiatives and Tactics. When you select a Tag as a Filter, everything not associated with that Tag drops out of the view—giving you a focused view of the activity supporting that strategic priority.

Because an Initiative or Tactic can have multiple Tags, Tags are not displayed directly in the labels of the colored calendar items or in the hover pop-ups.

If there is a Tag category your team needs to recognize at a glance—such as a business unit, region, or other high-priority planning dimension—you can incorporate a short acronym or naming convention into the Topic field. This can make that information visible in the calendar while still using Tags for filtering and analysis.

Customize Tags

Tags can only be set up and customized by an Account Owner or Admin.

Instructions for Account Owners and Admins:

Tag Your Tactics and Initiatives

Filter by Tag

When Selecting More Than One Filter

• Selections across Channels, Initiatives, and Tags narrow the results. Annum will only show Tactics connected to all selected items.
• Selections across categories of Tags narrow the results. Annum will only show Tactics connected to all of the Tags in the different categories.
• Multiple selections within the same category of Tags are additive and expand the results. Annum will show Tactics connected to any one of the Tags in the same category.

Personalize Team Member Visibility by Tag

Account Owners and Admins can customize which Tags and which tagged Initiatives and Tactics are visible to each team member—helping them stay focused on the parts of the Plan that matter most to them.

For example, if your Plan includes multiple retail partners—such as Kroger, Target, and Publix—and you are using Tags to track Initiatives and Tactics associated with each of them, you can personalize these Tags at the profile level to ensure a team member assigned to Kroger only sees items tagged with “Kroger.” Items tagged with “Target” or “Amazon” can be hidden from their view, while any untagged items are still visible.

This helps streamline focus and maintain confidentiality across teams working on different accounts or segments without restricting access to general Plan content.

Instructions for Account Owners and Admins:

1. From within a Plan, go to Plan Settings in the center top of the application. Select Team from the drop down menu.
2. Click the pencil icon next to the team member's name to change their view and edit rights.
3. Click (+) Tags button. This opens a popup window showing all available Tags.
4. Select the Tags and associated content you would like to be accessible for this team member's Profile. They will be designated with a checkmark. The remaining Tags and associated tagged content will be hidden. Note, any untagged items will still be visible.
5. Click the X to close the popup window.
6. Click the checkmark to the right of the (+) Tags button to save your selection.
7. The hidden icon will appear in the Profile Tags column letting you know the feature is active for that team member.

Accounts With: Multiple Plans / Calendars

For customers using our Lead and Nested Plan Structure, the popup includes all Tags created within the Lead Plan and the Nested Plans can be customized for a team member from within any of the Plans.

Account Owners can also personalize visibility by Tag within a team member’s Profile. Instructions for accessing can be found within our Add, Edit & Remove Team Members Guide under Edit Profile.

For more explanations and instruction, visit Guides where you will find a Glossary of terms, guides by role, and more. If you still have unanswered questions, contact us.

Annum's integrated omnichannel marketing planning software is patented. Patent Number: 12,079,779.