Marketing Strategy: 8 steps to kick-start for your business
Effective marketing begins with a well-thought-out and well-informed marketing strategy. Building a good marketing strategy helps you define clear, realistic, and measurable marketing goals for the business.
1. What is Marketing Strategy?
Marketing strategy is all the business goals realized by a specific and clear plan, aiming to market products to consumers and develop the brands of the product. Marketing strategy often focuses on product combinations to get the most profit.
Simply put, a marketing strategy is a written plan invested in more ideas and actions to promote a product or service to generate profit.
Marketing strategy affects how a business works, so it needs to be planned and developed in consultation with many people.
The comprehensive and wide-ranging marketing strategy planning tool:
- Describe the business and its products and services
- Explain the role of this product and service in the market
- Customer profile and business competitiveness
- Determine the marketing tactics to use
- Allows for building a marketing plan and measures and its effectiveness
A marketing strategy sets the overall direction and goals for a business’s marketing activities. It differs from a marketing plan, which outlines specific actions that will be taken to implement its marketing strategy. A marketing strategy can be developed over the next few years, while a marketing plan typically describes the tactics to be achieved in the current year.
2. 8 steps to build your own Marketing Strategy
2.1. Define business goal
Adjust the Marketing strategy to match the business goals stated in the business plan, then define a group of marketing objectives to support them. Business goals may include:
- Raise awareness of products and services.
- Sell more products from a specific supplier.
- Reach new customer segments.
When setting goals, it’s important to aim as much as possible so that you can effectively measure the results against what you set out to achieve.
A specific simple criterion for setting strategic marketing goals is the SMART method:
- Specific – state what you want to achieve.
- Measurable set tangible metrics so you can measure your results.
- Achievable set goals within ability and budget.
- Relevant- set goals to help you improve your business’s specific aspects.
- Time-bound – set goals you can achieve in the required time.
2.2. Concretize Marketing Goals
Define a specific set of marketing objectives based on business objectives. These goals will motivate and allow the business to track its success.
Examples of marketing goals include increased market penetration (selling more existing products to existing customers) or growing markets (selling existing products to new target markets).
These marketing goals can be long-term and can take several years to achieve. However, they must be clear and measurable and have a timeframe for achievement.
Make sure the overall strategies are realistic and measurable. A good marketing strategy will remain the same year but revised once the plan has been met or the marketing objectives has reached. You may need to improve the action plan if the external market changes due to new competitors, new technology, or when the product significantly.
2.3. Market Research
Research is an essential part of building a marketing strategy. You need to collect information about your market, such as size, growth rate, social trends, and demographics (demographics like age, gender, and family type). It is essential to monitor the market to catch any changes over time to keep the strategy relevant and targeted.
2.4. Identify potential customer profiles
Use market research information to develop a profile of the customers that you are targeting and identify their needs.
Profiles will reveal their buying habits, including how, where, and what they need. Regularly review trends to take advantage of new opportunities and become relevant to your marketing message.
While trying to find new customers, ensure your marketing strategy allows you to maintain relationships with existing customers.
competitor profiles
Developing a profile of your competitors by identifying their products, supply chains, pricing, and marketing tactics is also part of the marketing strategy.
Use this information to identify your competitive advantage – what sets your business apart from your competitors? You should also identify the strengths and weaknesses of your internal operations to help improve performance relative to your competition.
2.6. Develop strategies that support marketing goals
List the target markets and come up with a set of strategies to attract and retain customers. For example, the goal might be to increase youth awareness of the product. A corresponding plan might be to improve your online social media presence by posting regular product updates on Instagram or Facebook advertisements in local magazines aimed at young people; or student discounts.
2.7. Apply 7P’s in Marketing
Reach the selected market using the 7Ps in the Marketing Mix. It combines Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process, Physical Evidence, and marketing aids). You can choose any of these combinations to achieve your marketing strategy.
2.8. Test Ideas
When deciding on a strategy, do online research, test some ideas and approaches with customers and employees, and see what works. You must choose several tactics to meet customer needs, reach customers in your target market, and improve sales results.
3. Conclusion
Build a solid marketing strategy that helps you reach your target demographic, from individuals who have never heard of your company to longtime customers. On the contrary, if you do not have a specific plan or strategy, you will only lose money, time, and resources while you try to find what works.
