Without a sound marketing strategy in place, your business won’t achieve its true potential. You won’t be exploiting all the potential sales channels for your goods or services and you won’t be reaching your ideal customers on a regular basis.
A highly-targeted marketing strategy on the other hand, will ensure that you are consistently communicating the benefits of your products and services to your customers, and forging profitable, long-term relationships with them for as long as you are in business.
Often the most difficult thing about determining your business marketing strategy is deciding what actions to take and when. It’s no good firing off a press release to a trade journal in isolation, then not doing any other marketing for a fortnight. Things like publicity should be ‘built in’ to your business marketing plan as an ongoing activity.
The most successful marketing strategies encompass a wide variety of activities and initiatives such as advertising (digital or offline media), direct marketing, PR, trade shows and exhibitions, point of sale advertising and so on.
The direct actions you take should be driven by the customers you want to target. For example, Facebook advertising might be perfect for your jeans brand aimed at 18-25 year-olds, but not so great for a company selling stairlifts. Okay, that’s an extreme example but you get the point.
Where things can get a bit more complicated is when you are advertising your wares to different target groups. Perhaps you make a range of clothes for teenage girls, but you also make power suits for the 30-something businesswoman. It’s quite likely that these different products will be marketed under separate brand identities, with a differing strategy in place for each, although there may be some crossover elements.
A great place to start with your marketing strategy, is by finding out what is important to your target customer. Is it quality? Is it being seen in the latest fashions? Is it a brand name? Is price paramount?
In knowing what is most important you can segment your marketing by focusing on an individual factor.
Once you have decided on the marketing strategy for your business (or each of your brands), commit it to paper and make sure you refer to it often. It is your blueprint to success.
If you don’t yet have a marketing plan or business marketing strategy and you need some help working out exactly what’s right for you, then your dedicated marketing consultancy will be happy to get you moving in the right direction.
Chris Jenkinson is a UK based internet marketing consultant helping companies to increase their internet presence.