What Is A Marketing Strategy?

I am starting this blog; “why a marketing strategy is important,” from the premise that your company already has a business strategy. Why?

Business strategy is your story, and marketing is how you tell that story. If you need a business strategy, check out this blog post.

The job of marketing is to find potential customers in your market niche and turn them into customers

— and then keep them as customers. Pretty straightforward, but as every marketer knows —

it’s doable but challenging. So we must start with the fundamental question, “What is a marketing strategy?”

First of all, the standard definition of a strategy is a process that starts with an objective (that is achievable and measurable),

then researches the problem and creates an insightful concept on how how to reach that objective.

Then the company decides how it will implement that solution

— what it will do and not do because of limited resources –

and finally, prepares a plan to execute and monitor the implementation of that strategy.

How Marketing Strategy Is Determined

A marketing strategy uses the same process as a business strategy.

However, the objective is to find potential customers in your market niche, turn them into customers,

and then keep them as customers. To do that, you need to focus on where the initial buying decision is made — in the buyer’s mind.

Another way to look at marketing strategy is to ask questions because strategy is all about making choices,

and asking questions forces you to think more creatively. For example, what are the aspirations for your customers and your company?

What markets or categories are going to be your main focus? How will you convert those prospects into customers?

I will be writing a blog on this approach soon.

Unfortunately, too many marketers go astray on what they think is a marketing strategy.

They list ( a plan) all the media they can use and then go about telling their story when time and money permit.

Their story is often about what they do, but the potential buyer doesn’t care what they do;

they care about what you do for them. Plus, they often need to remember that you have to reach prospects

where they make the initial buying decision— in their mind, not in a brochure or catalog.

They need to remember that their story is their business strategy, and marketing is how they tell it.

Why Marketing Strategy Is Important: The Competitive Challenge

If the targeted person is a prospect, you have to assume they need your product,

which means they already use your competitor’s product. You have to replace that brand with

your superior, differentiated brand and then position your brand as the better choice in this product category.

If they are not using anyone’s product, you must ask why? If you can’t answer that question,

you might be in the wrong market, targeted the wrong audience, Or have a new product in a new market.

That is a short, simple explanation of the marketing challenge, but you can see why

most companies are disappointed with the results of their marketing program.

A Marketing Strategy Is How You Tell Your Story.

First, you have to aim your story at the right target — the prospect’s mind where the buying decision is made.

As you know, our brains constantly collect information and store it in either our short memory (Tiger! Run!)

Or our long memory (Oh yea, I remember that now) so we can use it later. That storage space is like a piece of real estate.

Your job is to get your brand to own a piece of real estate in the buyer’s mind.

In any product category, there can be several brands stored there. One will be the number one preferred brand.

You may need a significant media budget to stay there if you are number one already.

But, if your brand is number two-five, you need to differentiate your product and position it as the better alternative.

Everyone wants to know; what are some marketing strategy examples. Following are two you will recognize.

An example of doing it right: Hertz was the number one preferred band in the auto rental business

and had the largest market share. Avis moved to number two by positioning itself as the alternative to Hertz

by saying, “We’re number two. We try harder.” Busy business people hated waiting to check in or out.

They quickly “owned” that real estate in the buyer’s mind.

An example of doing it incorrectly: Computers were starting, and IBM was number one.

Honeywell was one of several other companies trying to compete with IBM.

They knew potential buyers looked at IBM and one other company before purchasing.

So Honeywell positioned itself as “The Other Computer Company.” It worked great for getting into the bidding process

— for a short period. But they lost every bid. Why? Their computers were not equivalent to IBM’s.

You have to be able to back up your positioning.

You get the idea. Marketing strategy is more than making lists of media and deciding which tactics

and how big the budget will be. And you also need a strategy for each tactic you will use.

I will cover the strategies of the different tactics – problems/issues, brands, differentiation, positioning,

value propositions, innovation, creative thinking, how to make better decisions, Etc. in other blog posts.

However, to get started, the following essential things you need to do to assemble your marketing strategy and plan.

Marketing Tactics

Remember, your business strategy is your story

and marketing is how you tell your story.

How To Get Your Marketing Program Started

A marketing strategy is a detailed plan of a company’s promotional efforts across various platforms and channels.

It includes objectives, target audience profiles, content creation steps, key performance indicators,

and other components. Hubspot.com identifies the following components as part of a marketing strategy.

In addition, I cover many other components and objectives like positioning, creating

differentiation, value propositions, brand creation, Etc., in other articles.

Marketing Objectives

Start with the marketing program’s overall objective to determine how the marketing strategy creates revenues.

Then the objectives for each strategy element and the goals of each communications program or tactic you plan to use.

All of these must be in sync with the business and marketing strategy.

Again, make them achievable and measurable. With every objective, be as specific as possible.

Marketing Budget: Your budget depends on the programs you want to implement

and the targeted market or niche selected. You can start with a definite value proposition

to a targeted small niche market and expand the target market as profits increase.

You can develop your marketing programs more quickly with the resources (time, talent, and money)

and an agreed-upon strategy. Also, the marketing budget must sync with your plan’s objectives and tactics.

Competitive Analysis

Knowing your competition is critical when creating your marketing strategy. For example, compare your business model against your competitors.

This analysis will give you information and a visual perspective and make sharing this information with all your employees easy.

Analyzing each business model element will enable you to look for weaknesses and opportunities to exploit.

Client/Prospect Analysis

Marketing is about knowing your prospects and clients. Not just geographic, psychographic, and location, but what’s in their mind.

Clients and prospects may already have perceptions and opinions about your products and services

and those of your competitors. You want to find out if they do and what they are.

This information is what your marketing will be about – creating a preferred space in their mind for your product.

In today’s competitive world, you must own a piece of real estate in your prospect’s mind.

Once you understand your position and your competitors’ positions, you can begin to create your marketing programs, including:

developing and maintaining your band,

differentiating your product from the competition

positioning your product well in the prospect’s mind.

You are ready to begin designing and creating the message you want to send your prospects,

including advertisements, brochures, websites, white papers, video messages, content marketing, blogs, podcasts, publicity, and more.

Monitor Your Marketing Programs

Marketing performance measures marketing campaigns’ success and shows how well campaigns

are tracking toward your goals. They are also essential elements of any campaign,

and marketing teams need them to understand whether their marketing strategy is successful.

Following are some metrics Amazon suggests for different channels that you should consider.

They will help you make better decisions about optimizing your programs and budgets.

Email marketing: email opens, forwards, unsubscribes

Digital marketing: click-through rate and impressions

Social media: follower count, impressions or reach, and engagement rate.

Website: monitor traffic, bounce rate, new customers, returning customers, time spent on site and traffic sources, and conversions.

Content marketing: blog traffic, amount of content shared, content downloads, qualified leads

through lead generation form and the progress of prospects throughout the sales funnel.

Video: impressions and total viewing time, followers, comments. Etc

Sales: with direct sales, sales team response time, sales call volume, and sales call reviews

Revenue: how much revenue each channel generates, the cost of that revenue, repeat sales, client turnover, and profits.

SEO: organic traffic, average keyword rankings, keyword search volume, and

Quality: Quality Score, reviews, and monthly recurring revenue.

Conclusion

I started this blog; what is a marketing strategy,” from the premise that your company already has

or is developing a business strategy. The job of marketing is to find potential customers

in your market niche and turn them into customers — and then keep them as customers.

Another way to look at marketing strategy is to ask questions because strategy

is all about making choices, and asking questions forces you to think more creatively.

Unfortunately, Marketers often think their story is about what they do,

but the potential buyer doesn’t care what you do; they care about what you do for them.

Marketing Strategy Is How You Tell Your Story. First, you have to aim your story at the right target

— the prospect’s mind where the buying decision is made. In any product category,

there can be several brands stored there. One will be the number one preferred brand.

You get the idea. Marketing strategy is more than making lists of media and deciding which tactics and how big the budget will be.

Cheers,

Jim Zitek

Two other blog posts you will want to check out: “How innovative strategies drive sales”

and “Innovative strategies for a competitive market”

Why Marketing Strategy Is Important?