5 Tips for Creating Effective Marketing Strategies
Before you can decide what tools to use and what content to post, you need to get clear on your strategy.
Having a strong strategy in place ensures sustainable, long-term success and spotlights your clear points of difference. Successful strategies help you to focus your time, energy, and money on only what matters most for your business growth, objectives, and your target audience.
A marketing strategy works to:
ensure brand consistency
clearly differentiate your brand from competitors
provide a deep understanding of your target audience
guide your decisions and actions
In your strategy, you should determine:
overall business goals
measurable and actionable objectives
target audience and brand personas
key messages
methods and tactics
Here are our top five tips for creating effective marketing strategies:
1. Do Your Research
Your first step should always be research. Research your industry, your niche, your competitors, and your target audience. This initial stage will help you to determine exactly what it is that sets you apart and can help you discover what you need to do better and how you can provide more value for your audience.
This research can include looking at websites and social media accounts of competitors, your primary and secondary audiences, and leaders in your industry. It should also include customer interviews and surveys as well as industry reports and news.
2. Go Deeper
When you think you’ve done enough research, do more. Dig deeper, especially in the area of target audience. You want to garner a true understanding of their interests, their challenges, what makes them tick, how they speak, what their goals are.
The insights you gather will help you to get inside their head and truly understand their needs for your products or services. Being aware of their needs and the driving forces behind them will allow you to market to them more effectively.
3. Consider Your Audience and Purpose
When creating your strategy, keep in mind who you are creating it for. Is it just for you? Will you be sharing it with a supervisor? Or using it to train new team members? Make sure you are including any additional information that might be valuable to those people.
4. Refer Back
As you come up with new ideas, create new campaigns, or launch new products throughout the year, always refer back to your marketing strategy. Consider it to be your brand’s Play Book, ensuring every element of your marketing aligns with the strategy you established. Ask yourself the following questions:
“Does this align with our brand values?”
“Will this help us achieve our brand goals or objectives?”
“Will this appeal to the brand’s audience?”
“Am I using the appropriate tone and language for the brand and audience?”
5. Update Often
As your business grows and evolves, your marketing strategy should too. We recommend creating yearly strategies to guide your marketing efforts. At the end of the year, use the strategy to review your successes and explore areas for improvement. Adapt the strategy as needed to reflect any changes within the organization, new goals and objectives, and the methods and tactics that will help you get there.
Creating a marketing strategy takes time and focus, but it is one of the best things that you can do for your business, ensuring all marketing initiatives are guiding you towards achieving brand goals and connection with your ideal customers.
Need help creating a marketing strategy for your business? Contact us, we’d love to help!