There are 7 Steps to Complete the Marketing Strategy Process
• Build a marketing plan.
• Create buyer personas.
• Identify goals.
• Select the appropriate tools.
• Review your media.
• Audit and plan media campaigns.
• Bring it to fruition
Build a marketing plan.
Analyze your market first. You can use market research better to understand your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. Analyzing your own company and its competitors might help you determine your market position.
It’s crucial to research your competitors to determine their strengths and flaws. Your company’s unique selling proposition (USP) is the foundation of an effective marketing plan (USP).
Using SWOT analysis, you can determine where your company stands in the market and what sets it apart from the competition.
Use it to figure out what your business does effectively and where you can upgrade.
It’s critical to identify and understand your customers in order to build a successful marketing campaign. A transparent target market must be defined early because not everyone can be a buyer.
You can begin sensible about what you want to accomplish once your company has been established and its positioning established.
Take into account your company’s size, growth ambitions, and sales goals before deciding. Aim for SMART goals that are measurable and attainable and relevant, and time-bound.
What marketing activity, procedure, or price will help you achieve your goals once you have set them?
Select marketing strategies appropriate for your business and your customers’ businesses. For example, newspaper ads may not be as effective as a social media campaign in reaching young people.
Choosing various activities that complement one another is an excellent strategy to ensure that your message is heard. Suppose you’re aiming to develop a new product in the market, for example.
In that case, you might choose to advertise on local radio, create social media channels and use a low-cost pricing strategy for first-time purchasers.
These methods complement each other and help you reach a larger market when utilized together.
It’s critical to assess your marketing efforts. Analyzing your results and staying informed about new marketing trends are essential to keeping your marketing plan current and achieving your business objectives.
You should adjust your strategy as your company, and the market do.
Understanding your company’s marketing budget and where it should be spent is essential for its long-term viability.
A marketing budget will ensure that your marketing plan or promotion is appropriately calculated.
When creating your marketing budget, make sure you’re only spending money on activities that add to your current marketing goals. Promotion and advertising can be costly. Choose solutions that will provide the best value while still reaching your target audience.
Create buyer personas.
A client persona is a fictional personality that represents your ideal customer demographics. This character is made up, but it is based on an extensive study of your current or target audience.
A customer persona, audience persona, or marketing persona are all names for the same thing.
You can’t get to know every single customer or prospect. You can, however, construct a customer persona to represent your clientele. (However, because different clients may purchase your items for various reasons, you may need to build multiple buyer personas.)
This client person will have a name, demographic information, interests, and behavioural characteristics. You’ll be aware of their objectives, pain spots, and purchasing habits.
You can even utilize stock photos or illustrations to give them a face because it may be crucial for your staff to attach a look to a name.
Essentially, you should consider and speak about this model customer as if they were a natural person.
This will enable you to tailor marketing communications to them specifically.
Keeping your buyer persona (or personas) in mind ensures that everything, from product development to your brand voice to the social platforms you employ, has a consistent voice and direction.
Identify goals
The overarching business goal should always be the starting point for any marketing strategy. Business goals give direction and clarify what you want to do, laying the groundwork for attaining that goal.
It’s important to remember that there are short-term and long-term objectives. As a result, staying up to date on the business’s strategy and priorities is critical.
Although the marketing team may not be relevant to or supportive of every business aim, many are, such as:
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Gain market share by knowing the competition and what has to be done to keep ahead.
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Increased revenue, more clients, or specific products or services are all examples of corporate expansion.
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Market expansion can entail internationalisation or new regions to reach new audiences.
Select the appropriate tools
The overarching business goal should always be the starting point for any marketing strategy. Business goals give direction and clarify what you want to do, laying the groundwork for attaining that goal.
It’s important to remember that there are short-term and long-term objectives. As a result, staying up to date on the business’s strategy and priorities is critical.
Although the marketing team may not be relevant to or supportive of every business aim, many are, such as:
Gain market share by knowing the competition and what has to be done to keep ahead.
Increased revenue, more clients, or even specific products or services are all examples of corporate expansion.
Market expansion can entail internationalisation or just new regions to reach new audiences.
There are the top 10 Tools You Must Have in Your ■■■■■■■
- Google Analytics
- Agora pulse
- Hub Spot
- Piktochart
- Trello
- Slack
- BiQ
- Ahrefs
- Lucky Orange
- Brand24
Review your media.
As with every business, a customer will have something to say at some point. Due to regardless of whether their views are positive or bad, many people will express them via social media. This may be, for example, your Facebook or Twitter page.
Don’t be afraid of your client.Make the worst-case scenario into a positive by taking advantage of the situation. By connecting with customers online, you demonstrate to people who follow you that you have a mechanism to fulfil every customer - regardless of the situation.
It’s a terrific method to show real people behind your social media by addressing the issue head-on and responding to clients on these different social media platforms.
One unfavourable review, if handled well, would have little impact on other people’s perceptions of your company; they can see that if they had a problem, it would be resolved quickly.
As previously stated, Facebook is a popular medium for individuals to learn about your company quickly. Users may read reviews and even see photos that have been tagged with your business.
This fast information allows users to determine whether or not to use your service at that time.
Although it isn’t always the best location to look for reviews, Twitter is ideal for quickly communicating with followers.
While Twitter can be used for customer service, it can also help to strengthen the relationship between you and your customers.
Instagram offers the possibility of a new type of review system. It’s far more visual, allowing customers to leave lengthy, detailed evaluations with high-quality photographs.
Most brands will choose to re-gram people who have mentioned their brand to foster a sense of community.
My Business on Google
Every business must have a Google My Business listing.
You can get started for free.
Second, it’s one of the top directories your company may be listed, and should someone Google your company. They should be able to discover all of the information they require.
They can see your hours of operation, address, and website, but Google My Business also allows you to post content.
Google still allows you to publish offers, products, events, and more, even if you can’t write to your heart’s content as you can on Facebook.
Customers may read other customer reviews when they search for you on Google without going to another website or social media platform.
Google reviews are just as important as anything you’ll find on Facebook, and you should respond to clients to either defuse a negative review or thank them for their business.
Social media is effective.
It gives you a platform in front of billions of individuals who could become your future clients, giving them a reason to utilise your service! One of them is having reviews! You may begin to build a community around your company by encouraging customers to provide reviews on your social media sites, creating trust and trustworthiness.
If your company isn’t on social media and you think it could benefit from one, contact us for a consultation.
Audit and plan media campaigns
Let’s start easy.
Creating a digital marketing audit checklist isn’t easy when you don’t understand what you’re doing. You’ll need a strategy initially if you’ve never audited anything before.
Auditing is essentially how you keep your marketing strategies from becoming static. It’s simple to adopt an approach, automate as much as possible, and then forget about it while you’re busy operating a firm.
Unfortunately, new clients join your community every day, recent trends emerge in your sector, and even updated algorithms must be considered.
Using a digital marketing audit template, you may evaluate every part of your advertising operations, review your possibilities, and overcome any potential hurdles. Any digital audit should include the following three areas:
Reach
Your brand must connect with as many potential customers as possible to evolve and grow. That means you’ll require a significant reach.
Your digital marketing audit will show you if you’re interacting with the proper individuals through your SERP ranks, site activity, email click-through, and social follower counts.
It’s also an opportunity to see if your personality and marketing initiatives attract the proper kind of customer.
It would help if you didn’t try to sell to everyone. Are you getting the types of leads you need from your campaigns?
Strategy
What methods do you employ to connect with your target audience? Blogs and Facebook postings may have been ideal for growing your business when you first came online.
However, if your organization is mainly visual, you may now discover that Instagram and videos have something to offer. Updating your strategy does not always imply eliminating previous campaigns. However, fresh material may be added to the mix.
Conversions
While traffic, engagement, and even excellent search engine results are essential, you must also ensure that these factors contribute to your bottom line.
Thousands of visitors to your site are meaningless if your marketing efforts do not result in sales. A digital marketing audit allows you to determine which of your initiatives produces the best outcomes.
With a better understanding of your conversions, you’ll determine where your advertising budget should be spent and where you can save money.
Bring it to fruition.
It all starts with a thought. Until Mary Anderson realized her vision, the windshield wiper was merely a concept. Similarly, Josephine Cochrane came up with the idea for the dishwasher.
Where would we be without Sara Blakely’s Spanx, of course? All visions begin with an idea; what you do next is what makes the difference.
You must carry your concept from concept to strategy to ■■■■■■■■■. How many super ideas have you had that never came to fruition? How many of your ideas have come to fruition? What kept you from converting them into something more than just ideas?
Entrepreneurs turn ideas into businesses, while visionaries bring ideas to reality. Over 15 years ago, I had the idea for a collaborative leadership conference, but I never tried to make it happen until the previous year.
It was safer to keep it as a concept. What held me back? Fear! Fear of failure, rejection, blunders, and the list goes on and on.
Fear is a strong feeling that might prevent you from achieving your goals. Add to that anxiety a lack of confidence, a sense of being a fraud, and so on.
It’s so easy to get off track. What’s difficult is channelling that energy into a constructive force, reclaiming control, and seeing your vision through to completion.
I’ve learned that power comes from believing in your concept and being willing to share it with others. That’s when a thought becomes a vision.
On the other side, a dream is just that until you add a strategy to put it into action. Here’s the tricky bit, the hazardous part: to realize your vision, you’ll need to communicate it and involve others.
Many people stop there because promoting and advancing your vision entails exposing yourself to scrutiny.
To be successful, leaders must have a vision, be able to express and communicate that vision, and engage prospective stakeholders in that vision.
It’s a risk because you expose yourself to unwelcome scrutiny, criticism, and inquiry. It does happen, but I would not be the successful entrepreneur I am today if I did not accept the danger, take that leap of faith, and leave my comfort zone. Was it all worthwhile? Definitely! Was it simple? Without a doubt, not!
When developing your vision approach, consider the following points.
Confidants
Surround yourself with positive thinkers who will provide you with honest feedback. Avoid people who want to bring you down, who have never had a vision, or who have a plan that does not include the success of others.
Intuition
Not all of your confidants will agree with you on your proposal, which could make decision-making difficult. Do your homework and investigate the market, but don’t forget to incorporate your intuition and instincts into your plan.
Intuition is a tool that informs you of essential things based on indications from our past experiences. In your decision-making process, your gut is a valuable tool.
Positive Self-Talk
Keep the inner dialogue in your head positive. Our inner voice can defeat us if we allow our limiting beliefs to get the best of us.
It’s like those old cartoons where a demon and an angel on each shoulder say, “No, you can’t,” or “Yes, you can.” Use positive self-talk to get rid of the devil on your shoulder, and only listen to voices that say, “Yes, I can!”
We can all think of reasons not to do anything. The reward comes from finding a cause to do something. I’ve certainly reaped the benefits of becoming an entrepreneur.
Frequently Asked Question
1) What are the 4 types of marketing?
The four Ps of marketing are product, pricing, placement, and promotion, and they are referred to as the marketing mix. These are the most crucial aspects of marketing a product or service, and they are highly intertwined.
2) What is the simple definition of marketing?
Marketing is the activity, collection of institutions, and procedures for developing, conveying, delivering, and exchanging value-added offerings for customers, clients, partners, and society.
3) What are B2B and B2C?
The terms 'business to business and ‘business to consumer’ are interchangeable. B2B eCommerce refers to selling goods or services to other companies using online platforms. B2C eCommerce caters to individual customers.
4) What is the best marketing strategy?
| No. | Top strategy |
|---|---|
| 1 | Educate with your content. |
| 2 | Personalize your marketing messages. |
| 3 | Let data drive your creativity. |
| 4 | Invest in original research. |
| 5 | Update your content. |
| 6 | Try subscribing to HARO. |
| 7 | Expand your guest blogging opportunities. |
| 8 | Use more videos. |
5) Why is marketing so important?
Marketing is the process of informing many people about a specific product. If your customers are well-informed about your goods, your sales will increase. When it comes to earning revenue, many firms profit immensely from marketing. It occurs when various business sectors employ different marketing tactics to increase revenues.
6) What is an example of marketing?
Marketing at work can take several forms, including television commercials, billboards on the side of the road, and magazine advertisements.
7) What is the difference between marketing and selling?
Put, selling converts things into cash, whereas marketing is the process of fulfilling and meeting client demands. The price, promotion, and distribution of a product or service are part of the marketing process.
8) What kind of marketing is most successful?
The word “social media marketing” refers to social media to promote a product or service. Social media marketing is the most popular and effective type of marketing. When more than 2.8 billion people utilize social media sites, it’s easy to see why.
9) What is D to C business?
Business-to-Consumer (B2C) refers to goods or services sold by a company to its clients. Direct to Consumer (or D2C) is an acronym for Direct to Consumer. Putting it another way means that orders are completed and dispatched straight to the client. You could think it’s B2C, but that doesn’t tell the whole picture.
10) What words attract customers?
• Free.
• Exclusive.
• Easy.
• Limited.
• Get.
• Guaranteed.
• You.
• Because.
11) What makes a customer happy?
Consumers who value your brand after the initial transaction are happy customers. They believe your organization understands their needs and is devoted to assisting them in achieving their long-term objectives. Customers can be made more comfortable by any company.
12) What is marketing as a career?
Marketing fills the void between the conception of a product and its eventual sale. A one-stop-shop for all your advertising, public relations, media, and sales strategy needs. It is the job of a marketing expert to create and manage brands.
13) What is the study of marketing?
A marketing major focuses on branding and advertising products and services to the general public, with specific demographics in mind. Because marketing impacts many academic disciplines, students will be well-versed in advertising, communications, consumer behavior, public relations, and marketing strategy and research.
14) What are the 4 types of products?
• Convenience goods.
• Shopping goods.
• Specialty goods.
• Unsought goods.
15) Who is your target market?
An audience you intend to offer your goods or services is referred to as a target market. Each group can be subdivided into subgroups. Age, geography, money, and lifestyle are commonly used to divide segments.