Having a digital marketing strategy for your business is essential to ensure your marketing activities are supporting specific marketing objectives. For the reason that the digital world has changed the way people are doing things, and the rise of the number of different digital channels available to target your customer base continues to grow, tools like Serpbook are highly reliable to keep track of how well marketing messages are performing on different platforms.
Not every marketing plan is a good marketing plan, which is why there is a framework that a killer marketing strategy would follow, and here are 8 steps to guide the design of your next bulletproof marketing strategy:
Assess your market
Your target market should be narrowly defined. While it is true that you cannot please everyone, it is highly likely that you can please your target audience, marketing technology has made it possible to personalize every campaign and interaction.
Figure out your niche audience and assess their likes, communities they are involved in, purchasing power, communication behaviors and more importantly the type of content they like to consume. Since your marketing strategy is meant to reach out to not only your customers but also your prospective clients, ensure you have done a thorough market assessment before you execute your marketing strategy.
Everything else in your plan will be essentially based on your target audience. Remember to conduct an internal marketing assessment to highly consider perspectives from multiple stakeholders, including marketing and sales leaders, as well as key executives.
How effectively you develop and nurture relationships with your audiences thereafter can determine your business’s ability to build a strong brand, grow a talented team, create a powerful culture, gain exposure in priority markets, establish brand loyalty and affect the bottom line anticipated results.
Define your product and/or service
The type of marketing messages you develop will be embodied by the type of product or service you are offering to the market. Be sure and specific on what specific value you are selling to people, even if it is an idea so that the niched audience group will no feel lost and displaced.
Analyze the industry trends and reports to find out what is new in your field of practice and what people are interested in consuming. Rebrand your product if you have to, so that it befits the nature of what is acceptable and likable in your industry of operation.
Optimize your promotional channels
With what technology and internet are to people, it is important that your marketing channels be aligned to where your target group will almost always be found.
If you decide to settle for a website or blog for your marketing campaigns, ensure you optimize these channels to befit your nature of message and audience. For digital marketing especially, ensure you opt for channels that are mobile-friendly since much of the world is accessing the internet from a mobile device.
Opt for personal channels so that you can forget blast emails and other impersonal communicative channels. If you have to produce broadcast messages, try using an automation service to allow for individual communication which is a little more personal.
Competitor analysis
Marketing is basically a method to keep up with the tough competition, therefore, there is a need to conduct a thorough competitor analysis. Competitor analysis is particularly important for informed brand positioning, marketing strategies, pricing, product mix, website efficiency, among others.
Know who your competitor is so that you swiftly keep up with the requirements and demands of your audience in that industry. Learn what does not work for them and create innovative ways to make their downfalls be your brand’s strong points, and mirror what they are doing right to remain relevant and in touch with your shared target audience.
Set prime goals and achievable objectives
It is fundamental that you define benchmarks and goals. Most businesses develop a marketing strategy leaving out the prime goals and objectives, which directly translates to deviating from the initial intended idea of the brand.
Rather than trying to set values for every marketing metric, focus on a select group of high-priority goals and achievable objectives that will keep you thriving throughout the marketing campaign period. Remember that this will also be vital in building your brands credibility and attracting the right kind of attention, even competition.
Even while a good marketing plan is driven by strategy, the details and tactics will give it the push it needs, which is why, everything should be quantifiable and if possible, in numbers.
Determine a marketing budget
Even with technology making things a lot easier, your marketing strategy should still have a budget to it.
For digital marketing, for example, you will require a budget for advocates and digital influencers, ads on different social media platforms, as well as access to premium services from some SEO tools that are an important part of the marketing process.
While at it, consider a (Return On Investment) ROI-based approach using historical performance data combined with future growth goals. Marketing strategies with the greatest potential ROI tap into and maximize existing assets.
Incorporate a project management system
Marketing is such a heavy function of a business. Enlist the marketing campaign activities with specific schedules and plans on when and how they are to be executed.
Set up a campaign tracking system to track and report results. Take care of the accountability factor and keep an eye on results to make sure all individuals in your marketing team will keep up with their allocated tasks in a timely manner.
Launch and execute your strategy
If you have come this far, your marketing strategy is ready to be executed. Create the marketing messages, websites, join those social media platforms, prepare those press releases and execute your plan.
It is at this stage that you can comfortably review the performance of your messages on the different platforms and the responsiveness to your call-to-action.
Strong marketing strategies help personal brands and businesses grow and gain industry dominance. A marketing strategy involves more than making advertisements that consumers will be attracted to, so that, there has to be a connection or relationship, display of need and real value in terms of content, so as to attract the right audience. Luckily, these easy steps will assuredly set you on the right path!
