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Creating a marketing strategy is not an easy task, which is why most business owners get stuck in their initial stages of entrepreneurship. It can be tricky to know what strategies work for your market, what works for you as a seller, and how to mix and match them.
That is where this article comes into play! We will go over all the different components of a marketing strategy, from defining the goal to creating a plan that fits your budget. You will also learn some helpful tips and tricks for developing your own strategic framework.
Now that you have an idea of what areas of marketing make you happy and what doesn’t, it's time to figure out how to use all of this information in a strategic way.
As we've seen before, creating a marketing plan involves more than just doing things such as publishing blogs or posting pictures on social media. It is not simply about keeping up with the trends and making changes to fit in with the market.
It is developing and executing strategies that will move the company forward. These strategies can be for the short term (six months) or long term (one year and beyond).
The six-month goal could be having a giveaway via Facebook or Twitter, launching a new product, hosting a talk or event, etc. A longer-term goal could be finding new ways to improve customer service or figuring out how to get more people to visit the website.
As mentioned before, defining who you are as an entrepreneur is the first step to creating a marketing strategy. What kind of business you have and what you offer can make a difference in how you market yourself.
If you’re offering personal training services, then making sure your credentials are up to date is important to promote your services. If you’re into fashion, putting together a collection is another way to draw attention to it.
Whatever you choose to be, know that people will connect with you or not depending on whether they like you and what you have to say. Your personality comes through when you talk so make sure to keep that natural.
Once you have defined who you are as an entrepreneur, the next thing to do would be to determine your target audience. Who wants what things so you can find out which industries fit yours and go from there.
How about health related businesses? You may want to focus more on one area than others. For example, if you have trained fitness professionals for life, maybe start focusing on just that niche instead of both.
Just because something has worked well for someone else doesn’t mean it works the same for you.
As we have discussed before, knowing who your audience is is the first step to creating effective marketing strategies. Now that you know who your target audience is, it’s time to do some research to see what brands they already trust and are similar to yours.
You can use this information as keywords for social media postings, advertisements, and/or website content. Your competitors may be able to give you tips on how to improve your product or service, or find out more about yourself and your industry.
By doing thorough research, you will not only create better campaigns, but also boost your own personal brand image.
Now that you have determined your strengths, what services you offer, and who you want to target with your service, it is time to create your marketing strategy!
What we refer to as a “marketing strategy” can be simply described as how you will communicate with customers about our products and services. It is not designed to be funny or clever, but rather informative and helpful. Yours should aim to clearly describe whom you are targeting, and what you are offering them.
Your marketing strategy should also include an estimated budget. No matter how good you may feel about your product, if you do not have enough money for advertising then no one will know about it. You need to estimate how much money you will spend on advertisements, shipping and packaging, website design, etc.
Lastly, determine when and where your advertisement will be placed. This includes social media sites like Facebook, websites such as yoursite.org, and printed materials at stores and events.
A good way to test your marketing strategy is to do something that is not part of your current campaign. If you are already doing some of these, then great! But if you have to pick one that makes sense, launch a new campaign style this week.
It can be anything from creating an Instagram account to start promoting yourself or your product, to launching a website and trying to grow your audience there, to adding social media influencers to boost your followers.
The most important thing about testing a tactic is to keep measuring it. Make sure to note how many views you got for your article, how many people clicked on the link to view your website, how many likes and comments you received on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and so on.
This will help you determine whether or not your campaign was successful and make changes as needed.
Now that you have determined all of your marketing strategies, it is time to implement them! This can be done via several methods: through social media platforms, advertising, creating content for your website or other mediums, sending emails, performing research and analysis, and more.
Making changes to how you market yourself or your product takes consistency. You will need to test your strategies in order to see results so that you can keep developing new ones or refining the old ones.
Testing one of your strategies could be changing up your cover letter, editing an article, doing interviews or presentations, etc.
As you can probably tell, creating a marketing strategy is more than just having a big event or launch and then sitting back and watching the waves.
It includes staying in touch with your customers non-stop, finding new ways to promote your business and developing strategies for these promotions.
Running an online store means there’s always something to do!
Keeping up momentum is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to marketing for stores. You will be constantly running low on resources and chances are, you’ll run out of them at some point. Make sure you don’t fall too far behind by keeping active, engaging and productive.
There are many easy ways to keep promoting your business while supplies last. Some examples include: responding to comments on social media, sending emails, posting on Instagram, starting a twitter account, etc. – all of these require very little time but make a huge difference.
Think about what types of promotion your business needs at this moment and choose one that fits into your schedule. Don’t feel like you have to do everything yourself, there are lots of people who would love to help you spread your message. Ask around and see if anyone is willing to contribute towards your goal.
As mentioned earlier, personalization is one of the most important strategies for marketers to use in their field. While general brand messages have limited effect, customized content can really influence people’s perceptions of you as an individual and company.
By adding yourself into what you say, you create more authentic messaging that appeals to who you are as a person and as a business. Your followers will feel connected to you, and you’ll inspire them to connect with you even more.
Your style and personality should play a big part in what you share online. If you’re very casual about work, then use that energy in your posts and pictures. If your colleagues talk about coffee or pets a lot, add those things into what you write so your followers know what to expect from you.
