To successfully drive in new customers and raise brand awareness, a company must have an effective marketing strategy. Having a marketing strategy will help set the direction for all your products and marketing-related decisions, as well as build a relationship between your business and your customers.
What is a Marketing Strategy?
A marketing strategy is essentially a plan of action designed to help grow your business by capturing the maximum mind share at a lower cost. The goal of this process is to turn prospective consumers into customers of their products and services. A successful marketing strategy will include critical elements such as the company’s value proposition, key brand messaging, data on customer demographics and the four Ps - product, price, place, and promotion.
To create an effective marketing strategy, you need to understand the following:
Who are your customers?
How do you motivate them to continue to buy your products or services?
Who are your competitors and what are they doing differently?
How do you measure the success of your marketing campaigns?
The make-up of a successful marketing strategy includes:
A clear definition of your competitive advantage and how you differ from your competition.
Complete knowledge of your product/service features, advantages and benefits.
A distinct understanding of your target market, considering both demographic and psychographic factors.
Why is a repeatable marketing strategy important?
Let's look at this from the perspective of Christopher Penn, who compares marketing strategies to menus. A menu is repetitive and reliable, whilst having minor alterations over time. For example, the menu at a thanksgiving dinner is generally made up of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. It is possible for items to be added or taken away, or for a recipe to be adjusted, but overall the overall framework stays the same.
Much like a menu, a company's marketing strategy will probably be nearly identical throughout the entire year. While certain factors will be adjusted to keep growing customers and profit, the structure of the marketing strategy will more or less be the same.
Not only will the marketing portion of your company benefit from a strategy, but your entire business will too. Without one, you won’t have a clear idea of who your customers are, the right products won’t be developed, and money will go down the drain.
How to create a successful marketing strategy?
To create a successful marketing strategy, first, you need to start with your overall business goals and intentions. You should constantly be thinking about your business goals because these will be the driving forces behind your business decisions.
The next step to creating your marketing action plan is making sure you’ve done your research on the market you will be or are already operating in. Pay attention to how your market has been performing, as well as your strengths and weaknesses as a company. Another important consideration is being able to highlight the challenges that you and your competitors have faced and could potentially face.
Customers are the driving force of any company, so knowing your target market is essential to survive as a business - especially when it comes to marketing. You need to know who you are serving, what their needs are and how you can meet them more effectively than your competitors.
Know your product and resources like the back of your hand. The objective here is to be able to understand your company’s position in the market. The 4 Ps of Marketing matrix is a great framework to use in this situation, which involves the key elements in marketing a product or service.
Product: what you provide, and what makes it stand out.
Price: how much is charged for a product, and how the price compares to the competition.
Promotion: where can you promote your product where it will best translate to customers.
Place: where will you sell your product, and who will distribute your product.
Check out our blog post on the 4 Ps by clicking here.
Lastly, how will your marketing be executed? There are several options, you could take a more traditional approach, through print, radio or television, but nowadays it's much more profitable to see marketing done through digital channels like social media and mobile apps.
Conclusion
This tool is extremely effective for achieving your company’s goals, through understanding customer needs and by having a unique competitive advantage. A marketing strategy helps catch a customer's attention, makes them aware of your products, and leads them to make the purchase. The right marketing strategy can completely transform your business and lead you to greater growth and success.
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