As you’ve probably realized, marketing is such a massive area to play in and there’s so much to consider. However, fundamentally, marketing is supposed to deliver on the brand strategy, which is about delivering on the business strategy.
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Your marketing strategy allows you to reach your people, the people who want to buy from you, the people you want to make a difference for. You want to impact them. But what is impact exactly? You have to convince them that your business is the right one to provide them with a particular benefit or solution.
Consider everything that’s going on with your products and/or services:
- How are they helping you execute on your brand and business strategies?
- Where are they positioned in the market?
- How are their sales performing?
- What are the related communication devices?
- How are you reaching the market for each of those products and services?
- What are the value propositions for each of them (as well as the business as a whole)?
Your marketing has to spread a message that differentiates you from everyone else. It has to let people know that you’re the one they absolutely have to be speaking to.
Keep in mind that your marketing strategy needs to be adjusted from pre-purchase through to post-purchase because the needs and wants of your audience will change as they move through the funnel.
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Here are five things that businesses must do, but often fail to, when it comes to their marketing strategy:
1. Don’t Make This #1 Marketing Mistake
Often businesses will make the mistake of trumpeting their own greatness and what they can do rather than communicating to their target audience the benefits of working with them.
Imagine coming across an ad with the company’s name as the headline and other information about the company, but nothing about how that particular product benefits you or makes your life easier or better. Would you buy it?
The answer is likely no unless you’re already familiar with the product and have bought from them before.
Marketers must focus on their prospects, not themselves because, at the end of the day, the customer is selfish and wants to know what it’s in it for them.
2. Be Constant and Consistent
Whether they’re large or small, I often run into businesses that don’t have what I call the CCs – they don’t implement constant and consistent marketing and communications.
We need to constantly be marketing to the people we want to impact and we need to be consistent in our messaging and approach. There’s so much noise out there so if you’re nowhere to be seen in the market or sending out conflicting marketing messages, you’ll certainly lose prospective customers.
3. Track Your ROI
The other thing that is absolutely essential is tracking ROI on every marketing activity. You know what they say, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
People will often say to me, “Advertising is so expensive!” But that’s only true if you’re not getting a return.
Think about the average value of a customer and their lifetime value. Let’s imagine that when you onboard a customer, they’ll stay with you for an average of 3-5 years. Considering that, is advertising really expensive? Or should you actually be doing that over and over because of the ROI?
4. Make Sure You’re Everywhere You Need to Be
There are so many great marketing channels available to businesses nowadays – referral, affiliate, direct to market, social media, digital campaigns, offline materials, sales collateral.
Is your business taking advantage of all the possible opportunities? And are you marketing consistently and constantly throughout each of them?
Remember, it’s not about being everywhere for the sake of being everywhere. Explore all possible channels and choose the ones that will allow your business to reach the right people.
5. Always Add Value
It’s obviously not enough to just market yourself and say how great you are, but you have to add value to your target audience. What does that mean exactly?
People are looking to learn and grow and find answers to their questions. Can you give that to them? Whenever you want to sell to a prospective customer or client, they have to GAIN something in interacting with your brand and business, even if they’re not ready to buy yet.
For example, you could give away free resources on your website that will help your audience solve a problem.
Marketing is complex, but the key is to focus on your target audience – who are they and what do they want and need? What problem do you solve for them? How do you make them understand that your business is the one to deliver on that?
Having trouble getting your marketing strategy right? My team and I can help you. We’ve helped hundreds of businesses from all industries multiply their ROI on their marketing activities!
