If you want to be a successful business then building marketing strategy is vital. Any company that wants to thrive in their industry needs to have a clear, well planned out strategy that is diverse. An organisations strategy for marketing is essentially a game plan – they need to know how they’re going to communicate with potential customers in order to let them know the benefits of choosing them. For some companies this is a constantly evolving process, while others will have set marketing strategies that they stick to. Here are some of the steps you should take when building yours:
1. Do a SWOT Analysis
Running a SWOT analysis will allow your business to see its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Getting as many different perspectives from around your business as possible will allow for the best results and can also be a great team building exercise. By the end of the analysis you should have detailed information on a lot of aspects of your company. This then allows a strong foundation for marketing strategy to be built on.
2. Identify Value Proposition
Value proposition is important to building marketing strategy. This is done by using the strengths and opportunities that have been identified previously in the SWOT analysis. It will allow you to see what your strengths are as well as how you differentiate from your competitors. This stage is one of the most important and it may take slightly longer, but that’s okay. Identify how your service/product benefits customers and use this to build value proposition.
3. Decide On Your Objectives
Objectives are measurable outcomes that are to be achieved in a specific time frame. This can allow companies to efficiently measure the success of marketing campaigns. It helps businesses communicate and define the goals they have. Make sure as a business that you keep updating objectives in order to stay fresh.
4. Building Marketing Strategies: Know Your Customer
If you want to be able to effectively market to your customers, you first need to understand them. Get to know their needs, wants and problems. Previously this had been done by traditional methods such as focus groups. It’s know easier to learn about customers through platforms such as social media.
5. Outline Buyer Personas
Marketers use buyer personas in order to better communicate with customers. Buyer personas are completely fictional, generalised depictions of a company’s ideal customer. When researching and developing these personas it’s important to look at backgrounds, demographics, preferences etc. This will give a better idea of how to communicate with the consumer.
6. Market and Competitor Analysis
To develop the best possible marketing strategy it is important to understand your competitors and market as much as you can. Constantly keeping tabs on competitor and market news as things can constantly be evolving. Ask yourself what your competitors are doing, their struggles, where are the weak links…
7. Determine Marketing Methods
Everyone’s perfect marketing methods will be different. It will depend on the audience you’re targeting, and how you want to communicate with them. The best you understand your customer, competitor, market and yourself will give you the greatest idea of what marketing methods will suit you best. Don’t be afraid to change any methods that aren’t working, it may not work out perfectly the first couple of times.
