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Having a great marketing strategy in place is key to the success of any business. Without a marketing strategy, you lack focus. And without focus, you will, quite simply, fail to reach any of the goals and objectives that you have set. Failure to plan is planning to fail. Marketing is not a standalone, one-off activity. It is made up of several different components that are necessary throughout each and every stage of a business’s endeavours - from long before a sale is even made, to long after. With so much going on, it is essential to have a strategy in place. Marketing Strategy DefinitionInvestopedia defines a marketing strategy as the business’s overall game plan for reaching prospective leads and turning them into customers of the products or services the business provides. Generally, it involves the company’s value proposition, key brand messaging, data on target customer demographics, and other high-level elements.
A marketing strategy combines all aspects of the customer journey and gives visibility to each department. This then allows the organisation to focus on the resources available, figuring out a way to use them to the best of their ability in order to generate sales and increase competitive advantage. "The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”Peter Drucker Marketing Strategy vs Marketing CampaignWhen it comes to marketing, there can be some confusion over the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing campaign. They’re both the same thing, right? In short, no. Your marketing strategy framework is more of a high level, overall strategic plan that is connected to the entire brand, and its organisational objectives. Whereas marketing campaigns are much more focused, short-term initiatives set out to achieve a very specific goal. Your marketing strategy should be used to help inform your marketing campaigns. A marketing strategy encompasses the bigger picture. A marketing campaign, on the other hand, describes the logistical details for each specific project.
But that is an entirely different topic for another time, so let’s get back to focusing on your marketing strategy… Why Do I Need a Marketing Strategy?In an environment that is subject to frequent and unpredictable change, you might wonder, why should we have to focus so much energy on developing a long-term strategy that is likely to need amending anyway? Well, the answer to that is: without a strategy in place, we don’t have repeatability or scale. The Importance Of A Repeatable Marketing StrategyWhilst your marketing strategy might require regular adjustments or tweaks, it provides you with a template of where to start and makes it easier to see similar or improved results from each campaign without having to completely reinvent the wheel. It also creates stability and a sense of predictability within the marketing department. Christopher Penn cleverly compares a marketing strategy to a menu; a menu is a repeatable process and a framework. For example, if your dinner menu during the Thanksgiving holiday is typically made up of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn, and pumpkin pie, then it is probably fair to assume that this is going to be more or less the same each year. Yes, you might change your methods, or recipes or even add in or take away an extra item or two, but the core plan remains the same. As marketers, our ‘menu’ probably looks similar each quarter, as we work towards a comparable outcome of brand awareness or lead generation, using our variety of ‘dishes’, from email marketing to SEO (search engine optimisation) to PPC (pay-per-click advertising), and so on. Whilst our recipes are adaptable and can be altered, the menu is more or less the same, allowing us to have more free time to spend on improving our recipes, rather than changing the menu each week/month/quarter/year. The Importance of a Scalable Marketing StrategyOnce you have a solid marketing strategy in place that is repeatable, you can now also use it for scale. So in other words, you could share it with another employee, team, or division of the company. That way, the entire company is able to adopt the same marketing strategy for all of the products and services you offer. This will help to keep everyone on the same page and allow for consistency across all of your marketing campaigns. Let’s go back to Penn’s Thanksgiving example one more time… Imagine you were super busy on the run-up to Thanksgiving, and you hadn’t found a minute to properly plan out your holiday dinner, and so your neighbour shared theirs with you. This would be extremely helpful and save a lot of extra stress and time. Instead of having to focus on the why and what, you can now simply focus on the how. And if this menu was a success, then you might want to share it with your own friends and family. So this one menu is now helping many homes prepare great dinners. Taking this back to your marketing strategy... With an effective plan in place, that is both repeatable and scalable, you are free to focus your efforts on improving the strategy and making it work, rather than wasting a lot of time that you don’t have, worrying about what the strategy is going to be. Before constructing a solid marketing strategy, it is vital to know exactly who you plan to target. Who your target audience is will impact many important decisions that you need to make, from branding and pricing, right through to the messaging you use, and marketing channels you choose to promote your products or services on. “There is only one winning strategy. It is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market.”Phillip Kotler The more defined your target audience is, the better your marketing strategy will be as you’ll be able to create all of the brand marketing content, messaging, and ads with them in mind. As time goes on, and you gather more insight, you will continue to gain a deeper understanding of who exactly falls into your target audience. So don’t be afraid to learn as you go, and be adaptable to change, as you might find you need to go after a different group of customers to those you originally set out to reach. And no, before you ask, your target audience simply cannot be everyone. Unless of course, you’re Amazon, who after 26 years of establishing themselves as e-commerce royalty, have earned the ability to target everyone and anyone they want. Is There a Difference Between Target Audience & Target Market?Yes. It can get pretty confusing when you see the terms ‘target audience’ and ‘target market’ being used interchangeably, and many marketers unknowingly assume that they are the same thing. Whilst sometimes they may be the same for your business, this is not always the case for others, so let’s quickly take a look at the differences. Target MarketThe target market is essentially the general group of people who will use and consume the products or services you offer. These people may share demographic characteristics such as age, gender, income, and job. For example, the target market for nappies and baby wipes is babies and toddlers of all genders. Additionally, the target market for a luxury beauty salon might be women and men of a certain age, that come under a specific salary bracket and live in a particular location. Target AudienceThe target audience is whoever the business expects to purchase their product or service. If we use the earlier example of nappies, the product itself is aimed at the babies and toddlers but, of course, they aren’t going to be the ones making the actual purchase. In this circumstance, the advertising and marketing efforts should be directed at the target audience, which is made up of the parents and guardians making the purchase. Your target audience can also be a subset of your target market; these are people you are trying to reach as part of a particular marketing communication or promotion. For example, a luxury beauty salon might be offering discounts off a number of anti-wrinkle treatments. As these treatments are generally age-specific, there is no need to target your entire market. Instead, your target audience can be made up of those who are within the right age bracket. Related reading: Top Tips to Identify Your Ideal Target Audience The Importance of a Defined Target AudienceHaving a defined target audience is a vital element of your marketing strategy. It enables marketers to:
Being able to relate to the tone and content of a message is necessary in order for people to ‘buy into’ your brand. This ability to strike a chord with your customer allows you to make a personal connection and establish trust. By targeting consumers who are highly likely to have an interest in your brand, product, or service, you are more likely to see a higher return on investment (ROI), in comparison to sending out a direct mail to every possible household. Once you have established your general target market, it’s time to segment. Customer segments are made up of a number of subgroups of your overall audience, often defined by their similar needs and wants. Consumers have become much more empowered and expect highly personalised messaging from brands, meaning that segmentation is now more crucial than ever. For most companies, there are various types of customers that might have an interest in the products or services you offer. The process of segmentation involves identifying these different groups and effectively positioning your brand to each one. So let’s briefly discuss some of the most common methods used by marketers to segment their target audience: DemographicDemographic segmentation is one of the more basic methods and involves grouping consumers based on factors such as age, gender, marital status, education, religion, race, income, occupation, and family size. This data is one of the easiest and quickest for brands to collect and analyse, so it’s no real shock that most companies successfully segment their customers using (at least) demographic information.
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