What is a marketing strategy, and how do you go about developing one for your company? These are crucial topics to consider if you want to develop a successful growth strategy for your company. If you want to see faithful business growth, don’t overlook the significance of this step in your business development.
Have you ever heard of throwing spaghetti at a wall to see which ones stick? That’s what it’s like to try to expand your company without a marketing strategy. You’re experimenting with several methods to reach out to and connect with others, waiting to see which ones work. Instead, beginning with a sound marketing strategy might assist you in defining exactly what you’re looking for.
To narrow down what your marketing plan should look like, we’ll walk through 4 distinct marketing strategy steps below. There is no right or wrong strategy at the end of these four processes, but going through them should help you figure out how you want to go with your marketing in order to reach your target audience.
If you haven’t already done so, make sure to read my post on defining your target market before moving on to this phase. Once you’ve determined who your target market is, consider the following questions:
Once you’ve figured out where your target market spends their time and who they listen to and trust, consider the many channels you could use to meet them where they spend their time, and/or influence them through the voices they trust and listen to. If your target market is stay-at-home moms or college students, for example, they are likely to spend a significant amount of time on social media platforms. You’ll be able to meet them there. Moms in their local circle may also listen to and trust other moms. You might run into them there. Students can trust and listen to campus news or local radio. You might run into them there.
Every business and target market will be different, so try to think about how you can interact with your target market in the locations where they spend the most time and through the voices that they listen to and trust the most.
Before moving on to this phase, make sure you’ve established your business purpose and goals (or “why” and “where”) by reading my piece here. It’s difficult to establish what you want your company’s voice to be without first determining what your company’s mission is and where you want it to go.
Once you’ve established your mission and a vision for your company’s future, consider the following questions as you consider your voice (or message):
What am I trying to persuade my clients to buy? Is it a product I’d like them to purchase? Is it a service that I’d like them to join? Is there anything specific I’d like them to read? You need to determine what you want your consumers to follow through on before you communicate with them or they may have interest in what you’re offering but not know where to go with it.
This has to do with meeting your target market. Consider how you’d like to employ your voice. Make sure your message is heard in a way that your target market understands.
In the previous two steps, you determined where you can meet your target market and what your “voice” should be. It’s now time to put them together and devise a marketing strategy. This isn’t a thorough plan for how you’ll carry out your marketing strategy (that comes in your marketing plan). This is simply a list of the general methods you want to employ to advertise your company.
Consider where you’ve determined you can meet your target market and whether you want your voice to be relational, transactional, or short-term. Where do your responses to those two questions intersect? That’s where you should focus your marketing efforts!
Please contact us at TheCodeWork.if you are an entrepreneur in need of a tech team. We’d want to discuss this further.
