Think of the brands that you automatically reach for when you’re doing your grocery shopping. Identify the things that you bought for your house or your office. Each of these brands that got you to purchase their product has a marketing strategy that worked for them.
A marketing strategy is a vital component of every business plan. Remember that your marketing strategy determines how you get to your target market; how you present your brand, how you communicate your message and how you get their buy-in. Your marketing strategy is composed of marketing campaigns that work to meet your business goals. Take note that a marketing strategy is applicable for both your traditional and digital marketing efforts.
Your Marketing Strategy
Your Marketing Strategy refers to your high-level long term plans that focus on communicating with your target market about your brand and your unique selling propositions. Developing your marketing strategy means considering the demographics of your market and studying how to best convince them to buy your products or avail of your services.
The 4Ps of marketing plays an important role as this guides your advertising and PR team. This provides a framework and direction for them to work with. The 4Ps stands for product, price, place and promotion. These are the key elements of a holistic marketing strategy.
When developing your marketing strategy, make sure to set S.M.A.R.T. goals. Goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Write down what you want to achieve and make sure that there are metrics to help you measure your success. Though while doing this, it is important to keep in mind that this should be achievable and not hypothetical. Your goals also have to be relevant to your business in terms of improvement and development.
Finally, once you set objectives, decide on a deadline that will determine when you need to achieve these goals. Once you have laid out your marketing strategy, it is time to think about the marketing campaigns that will help you reach your marketing goals.
Developing a Marketing Campaign
A campaign is a set of multiple marketing assets, designed to achieve a short term goal in a set timeframe. Similar to marketing strategies, your marketing campaigns also need to have goals. Although, this time you have to make it a little more specific while still working towards the general goals set when you developed your marketing strategy.
- Is this campaign particular to a certain demographic within your target market?
- Is this campaign going to work towards establishing awareness for your brand?
- Is this campaign mainly to drive sales?
Once you have decided on the goal of your campaign, determine the resources that you would be needing. This part refers to the budget. As a company, you have to set aside a budget that serves as an investment for your promotional and marketing needs. Though in deciding on the amount that you want to allot for your marketing initiatives, keep in mind that this should be big enough to effectively get your message across but conservative enough to keep your profit margins. A bigger marketing budget does not necessarily equate to bigger sales and more ROI.
Get to Know Your Target Market
When you plan out initiatives and projects for marketing, you should know your target market like the back of your hand.
Know the basic demographics about your prospective customers like their gender, age, occupation and location. In the world of digital marketing australia, location does not only mean geography and where that is located.
Location means knowing where they are online. Which platforms are they using? Are they even on social media? What content do they engage with? What do they search for? What time do they go online? Knowing all these things will allow you to customize your marketing campaign to be more effective to the people that you need to sell to.
Determining Singular Assets
If you have a campaign that you will run for six months or one year or whatever timeline that you set, you also have your singular assets. These are your promotions, touchpoints, tactics and activations. This is where events like pay-day sales and holiday mark-downs come into play.
Here is an example to better understand how these assets fold into your marketing strategy. If your brand is all about innovation in terms of automotive, having an event to have your target market gather and try out your product is a great way to draw attention while letting them experience everything it is that you are talking about in your campaigns and what they see in your advertisements is likely to be a success given that you execute it strategically.
Measure Your Success
However good your marketing team is or how much you spent on your marketing initiatives will not matter if it did not reach your goals. If spending thousands of dollars during the past 12 months did not change your sales compared to the previous years, that means it was a total flop.
When you start executing your plans, even if you have just started, take note of small successes and even small failures. That way, you get to learn, improve and adjust if necessary as you move forward with your campaign.
At the beginning of the planning period, determine your KPIs. These are your Key Point Indicators. Collectively, this will determine the success of your campaign. Common KPIs include social media engagement, reach, the website traffic and overall sales. This varies per business, per industry and campaign.
Final Thoughts
It is always good to invest in your business. With a continuously growing and developing world, trends change, people change and businesses should be able to adapt their strategies and plans to thrive. Understanding your target market and developing your campaigns all go hand in hand in ensuring that you meet your business goals.
There are always ways to improve and grow your business. Call us at 1300 998 778 and check out what is in store for you when you get a professional digital marketing team to support your business.
