Incorporating marketing into a business strategy allows companies to promote their products and services to potential customers, build brand awareness, drive growth, and deliver measurable results.
A marketing strategy is made of multiple components and should therefore be carefully planned out and executed in a way that ensures that all aspects meet the business’s overall identified goals and objectives and is essential for any business to succeed in a competitive marketplace.
In this blog, we will discuss each of these components in more detail and explain how they contribute to the overall marketing strategy.
Components of a Marketing Strategy
Target Audience and Target Market Segmentation
Who are you trying to sell to?
The first step in creating a successful marketing strategy is to conduct research and identify your target audience and segment the target market; the target audience is the group of people who would be most likely to buy your product and/or service, while the target market is the broader market, including potential customers.
Target markets are divided and broken down into the following, four groups:
- Demographic (age, gender, income, marital status, etc.)
- Geographic (location, urbanicity, climate, culture, language)
- Psychographic (values, likes, dislikes, lifestyle, opinions, etc.)
- Behavioural (actions made within a website, in-app, in-store)
In doing this, businesses can tailor their marketing messages and strategies to appeal to each group’s unique needs and preferences.
Set Goals and Objectives
What are you trying to achieve?
Setting goals helps define objectives, identifies conflicting activities, guides elements of the decision-making process, and ensures accountability of personnel within an organisation. Your goals should be aligned with the overall business objectives – they should be clear, assist in focusing the marketing efforts, and provide a way to track progress and measure success.
Are your goals SMART?
- Specific (simple, sensible, significant)
- Measurable (meaningful, motivating)
- Achievable (agreed, attainable)
- Realistic (reasonable, relevant)
- Time-Bound (time-based, time-sensitive, cost-)
Conduct a Competitor Analysis
Who are you up against?
To create a successful marketing strategy, businesses need to understand their competitors and the market they operate in. This involves researching and analysing their strengths and weaknesses, their audiences, identifying their marketing strategies, and understanding market trends and potential opportunities for their business. By doing this, businesses can identify areas where they can differentiate themselves from their competitors and stand out. It may also provide insight into competitors’ products and product development plans, pricing structures, and acquisition trends.
Content Creation and Promotional Tactics
How will you engage?
Content creation and promotional tactics are critical components of any marketing strategy and vital to creating a brand presence and getting your brand seen. This involves developing relevant and engaging content that appeals to the identified target audience that supports the overall marketing goals and objectives – this could include blogs, social media posts, infographics, thought leadership pieces, eBooks, etc. Promotional tactics include advertising, sales promotions, public relations, and personal selling.
It is important to remember that the content selected is based on what is best for your business and what it is you are trying to achieve. What works for one business, does not necessarily work for another. Content should be engaging, relevant, and well thought out, with the correct messaging and call to action – what is it you want your audience to do, to see, to feel? What is the end marketing goal your business is looking to achieve?
Brand Awareness
How will you get noticed and ensure people are talking about you?
Any business needs brand awareness and a share of voice to succeed long-term. It involves creating a positive image of the brand in the mind of the consumer and building trust and loyalty over time, aiming to build familiarity with your brand and name recognition.
Brand awareness can be achieved through multiple marketing activities such as advertising, PR, social media marketing, and content marketing. For a business to stay relevant and top of mind it is important that its brand and value proposition are consistently communicated to its target audience to build brand awareness.
Monitoring and Evaluation
How are you doing and what needs to change?
Monitoring and evaluation are crucial components of a marketing strategy. By regularly tracking and analysing marketing performance, businesses can identify what works and what doesn’t and make necessary adjustments. This helps to ensure that the marketing strategy remains effective and aligned with the business objectives.
Marketing Plan
What does your roadmap to success look like?
The final piece of the puzzle is the marketing plan. A comprehensive document that outlines the overall strategy in full and incorporates all the above elements, including budget and timing. It provides a roadmap for implementing the marketing strategy and helps ensure that all stakeholders are aligned and working towards the same goal. Having a defined outline also provides responsibility and accountability to those involved and a formal document that all parties can refer to if any changes need to be made or aspects re-evaluated based on changes that may arise along the way.
Why is it important that all these components are included in your marketing strategy?
Having a sound marketing strategy in place provides businesses with a competitive edge and helps develop constructive and strategic goals, allowing you to offer profitable goods and services to your market. Not only is a marketing strategy beneficial to your customers but to your organisation too. It allows you to utilise your resources optimally and helps in discovering areas within your business affected by growth, thereby creating a plan to cater to customer needs and ensuring effective departmental coordination.
Did you know…
By investing in the right marketing team, you can ensure that you have the necessary expertise to best guide you in executing the research and strategic planning needed to assist in your growth marketing strategy, to help your business succeed both internally and externally – and guess what, Brightside Marketing can do just that!
