No matter if you are the owner of a small business or are part of a bigger marketing team, making sure that you get your products and/or services in front of customers can be an exhilarating challenge. It takes a broad variety of skills and knowledge to know how to attract to your target market as well as understanding how to create a marketing strategy can play a central role.
The More, The Merrier
A marketing strategy should never be created in a silo. In fact, when you assemble a team of employees from across a number of different disciplines, levels of seniority as well as departments, you will create buy-in from the outset and improve your chances of putting together a more robust plan. The team may encompass sales, marketing, public relations, IT and more, which will make sure that a variety of perspectives are included in your plan.
It can often be tempting to rush through this step and move on to tactics and implementation, however, give this collaborative effort ample time so that everyone is able to provide insights and recognise their role in turning marketing strategy into reality.
Run A SWOT Analysis
Begin by running a SWOT analysis in order to pinpoint your business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities in addition to threats. It’s actually a fun team exercise, crucial to your planning process as it will inform – in one way or another – all the following key steps towards developing a marketing strategy. In order to avoid bias and cover different viewpoints, get as many fellow colleagues to contribute as you can.
Having a clear view about what you’re best at, what areas you are required to improve on, spotting the external factors which represent the motivation for your business to exist or, conversely, factors which have the potential to place your business at risk, will equip you with the correct tools to build a well-informed marketing strategy.
Aim For The Target
It is especially important to define your target audience early on in the process so that you are able to ascertain how you will reach out to your target audience. If an audience or group is far more likely to assist your organisation reach one of its business goals, then you will have found a target audience. As well, collaboration is essential in this step. For instance, the sales team may know what a particular audience usually spends as well as how probable they are to buy into what you’re selling.
Profile Your Potential Customers
Utilise your market research in order to develop a profile of the customers who you are targeting and pinpoint their needs.
The profile will reveal their purchasing patterns, including how they purchase, where they buy as well as what they buy. Again, review trends regularly so you don’t miss out on new opportunities or become inappropriate with your marketing message.
While you try to find new customers, ensure your marketing strategy also gives you the opportunity to maintain relationships with your existing customers.
Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing
Keen on learning how to create meaningful marketing strategies? If you are then you need to do our Marketing Strategy Course. Follow this link for more information.
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