Our Enterprise beta is live! Apply here.
Learn More
A marketing strategy is something that includes how you market to your customers, what products or services you offer, and when you will promote each product or service. Yours comes with deadlines because as we know, businesses need to stay in business!
A good way to organize your marketing strategies is by organizing them into different areas and categories. This article will talk about some of the most important parts of a marketing strategy and how to structure yours.
If you’re looking for more tips on how to lay out a marketing strategy, check out our very own online resource here at The Power of Product Magazine! We have lots of free content and easy-to-follow steps to improve your business.
You can find it here: http://thepowerofproductmagazine.
Consistency is one of the most important things you can be when marketing. This means consistency with your messages, strategies, products, vendors, and people. When everything isn’t matching together, it creates a negative perception which will not set well with customers.
Consistency is also very difficult to maintain sometimes. No matter how hard you try to keep up with all of the different tasks that have to get done, there are always going to be times where you just don’t have enough time or resources to make sure everything gets finished.
That’s why having a system in place is so important. A system will give you some slack because it has done its job before and it doesn’t require too much attention every day.
As long as everyone knows what they are doing, then nothing really changes except for the timing. With this system, you can still leave yourself enough room to grow and succeed later.
Having a systematic way to manage your business also helps prevent burn-out. Because instead of trying to do it all at once, you only focus on doing your own thing for a little bit before moving onto something new.
This way, you never feel like you are running out of things to do, and you avoid getting burnt out. Plus, it’s more efficient use of energy since you aren’t spending hours per week trying to meet all of your obligations.
A well-marketed business will use different mediums to convey their message. This can include creating advertisements, brochures, billboards, direct mail pieces, etc.
All of these media are designed to appeal to your audience, so make sure you know what kind of messages work for yours!
Your marketing strategy should be cohesive and linked together, but it also needs to look good!
Having a beautiful looking advertisement or piece of advertising material is an integral part of developing your brand.
You want to pay attention to detail and have fun with designing your materials, just like you would in any other field of design.
General tips: use white space; play up the importance of your product or service
Running a business means that there’s always something to do! Even during non-business hours. Having a separate area set aside just for social media postings, email campaigns, and general marketing activities will help keep things organized and efficient.
Using smart software to organize all of your campaign information is another way to stay on top of everything.
And don’t forget about making yourself available for questions and comments! Chances are someone will ask how to use your services, or tell you about a better way to run your business.
Business owners who remain accessible show they are invested in their industry and community. And being accessible gives you the opportunity to start building trust.
After you have determined your market, your goal is to determine what steps you will take to reach that market. This is an important step as it begins to establish process for marketing yourself or your product.
What kind of products do they like? What messages does he/she read? What sites do they visit often? These are all examples of questions you should be asking about your target audience to determine their “behaviors”.
Even though you may have already done most of the hard work in terms of finding your product or service, and establishing it as a winner, there is still one important thing left to do! You need to lay out your marketing strategy.
What makes the best brands stand apart from the rest is their unique style that sets them aside. What kind of messages does their advertising convey? Does it feature flashy, dramatic scenes or calm, steady ones?
It’s your job to find the balance between being bold and engaging and staying quiet and elegant. Your brand will look very different depending on what you choose!
When creating yours, think about how you would like to be marketed. Are you more into loud, fun slogans with lots of references to your company or quieter, simpler ads that don’t draw too much attention to themselves?
You want your potential customers to feel relaxed when they look at your advertisements, so pick a style that fits that.
As mentioned earlier, creating a marketing plan is not a one-and-done process. You will be doing this several times over as you grow your business. It’s important to update and reevaluate your strategies as your business changes or new opportunities arise.
The first time you create a strategic marketing plan it can feel really overwhelming. But don’t worry! This initial planning process is easy to follow. All you have to do is make sure you distribute your strategies across all areas of your business and then stick to them.
As you grow your business, you may need to add additional sections to your plan. For example, if you are trying to find more ways to market online, maybe start working with other departments in your office on that. Or, if you are looking to expand into different products or services, determine what needed to be done outside of your job and whether there are any resources available to you.
The first step in developing a marketing strategy is figuring out what works and what does not work for you and then measuring those changes!
You can’t develop a plan if you don’t know what has worked in the past, so before moving onto the next idea, measure how well each one of these strategies performed by tracking your results.
Start with looking at the numbers- overall sales, revenue, profitability, etc.- Then compare them to previous seasons or years to determine if there have been trends.
If there are no trends, evaluate whether the strategies made a difference by yourself or if someone else should be responsible for the success. If it was just you, try new strategies and see if that makes a difference!
If there were trends, assess whether they will continue and if others need to be added into the mix.
As we mentioned before, you will want to review and update your strategy every few months. This is especially important if you are trying to achieve a certain goal such as increasing traffic or revenue. If there’s one thing that I have learned about running a business, it’s that no matter how well you think you’re doing, always expect the worst!
I remember reading an article years ago where the writer said something like, “Businesses fail for three main reasons: bad management, lack of leadership, and lack of marketing.”
He went onto say that these are probably the most common causes of failure in businesses, which made me laugh because he was clearly not talking about yours!
The reason he mentioned them again is because they remain major factors in failing to succeed even after you've done all the work to fix those things. It can seem daunting at times to try and improve upon what you're already working on, but really - taking time to do this makes succeeding much more likely.
By giving yourself extra time to see results, you will eventually find success.
As we have discussed, one of your marketing strategies can be creating an online community. This article will talk about another way to use teamwork in your business- market team building!
Teambuilding is a great way to enhance workplace relationships as well as promote productive conversations. When done properly, it has incredible benefits for both individuals and the organization.
It increases productivity and communication skills, promotes trust, and creates a sense of belonging. All of these improve performance and morale!
What are some ways you can do teambuilding at work? Here are three that I have seen work.
