The right marketing strategy can make or break your company. This article will show you how to create a winning marketing strategy. It is easy and takes only five steps. But first, let’s answer a simple question.
What is a Marketing Strategy?
Your business’s battle plan for future marketing activities is called a marketing strategy. It’s the long-term planning for the company’s business goals. These objectives can be achieved by choosing the right actions to increase sales or consolidate the brand of products and services. A marketing strategy is now more important than ever. Today’s world is flooded with new technologies, growth hacks and “must-try” marketing gimmiks. If you don’t have a plan of action, the overwhelming information can make it difficult to stay on track. A solid marketing strategy will allow you to concentrate on the things that matter most and then execute them correctly.
What are the benefits to developing a Marketing Strategy?
Your company can reap the benefits of a marketing strategy in many different ways. These are the top three:
Understanding Your Customers
It is impossible to sell everything to everyone. Marketing and sales professionals must identify the people or organizations that are most likely to become long-term customers. Once you have a clear picture of your customers and their needs, you can explain to them how your product/service can help meet their needs, ease their fears, or solve their problems.
Guide for Marketing Plan and Budget
Your marketing strategy will define the marketing channels that you will use. This includes print media, electronic media and social media. Your plan outlines the actions you will take in each channel throughout the year and the timeframe. A solid marketing strategy will ensure that your business’s promotion is in line with your overall business goals.
Gain an Edge Over your Competitors
A solid marketing strategy will help you understand what you do and who your target customers are. It will also give you insight into how to get to market. You can also measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. It is also possible to understand your competition and how you can beat them. It is easier to position yourself effectively in the market and gain a sustainable competitive advantage when you have a clear understanding of your business and its goals, weaknesses, strengths, and competitors.
Developing a Marketing Strategy that wins : 5 easy steps
- Get your market research data prepared
Market research is an integral part of marketing. It’s a topic in itself. Your strategy could be ineffective if you don’t have well-researched data. When preparing market research data, keep these points in mind:
- Qualitative market data
- Quantitative market data
- Market segmentation
- Competitive analysis
- Choose the segments that you want to target
A target segment is a market segment that you choose to target. These six questions will help you choose the right target segments:
- Is your product in line with the needs of the segment?
- Do you think it will bring you the greatest value if your market share is increased?
- Are you able to market your products and services in a way that increases your market share?
- Is it really that difficult to increase your market share?
- Is this segment influencing other segments? What is the impact of this segment on other segments?
- What are the tradeoffs when you shift your focus from one segment to another?
Your ideal target segment is one where you can make the greatest money with the available resources.
- Proper positioning will help you appeal to your target market
Your target market will perceive your brand’s positioning. The intended brand image is the association people make with your brand and products. You can position yourself to be different from your competitors and, in certain cases, influence the perception of your target market.
- Choose brand quotes to stand out
A brand code is a unique asset that you use in all your communications. It can be thought of as your sidekick for positioning. Your logo and visual style are the most popular brand codes. For most brands, that’s all they need. It is not enough to be unique and stand out in the minds of your target audience.
Your ultimate goal should not be to have your audience recognize your brand without any logos.
- For the next year, set strategic goals
To guide your marketing efforts, and to provide benchmarks for evaluation, you need clearly defined marketing goals. This is all you need to do now for your marketing strategy.
Your marketing goals should be aligned with the widely-used criteria SMART:
| Specific | Clearly defining the desired outcome and answering “who, what?, when, how much |
| Measurable | You must be able track your progress using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). |
| Achievable | Does the objective align with your overall marketing strategy and business strategy? |
| Relevant | Be bold in setting goals but realistic. Use current growth as a benchmark. |
| Timely | Set a timeframe for reaching your goal. |
And there you have it, the perfect marketing strategy is ready to be implemented!
