If you’re the Founder or CEO of a growth-stage business, you’re probably so busy running your business that you don’t often have the time to take a step back and think about the marketing direction of your business. As a result, your marketing activities tend to be ad hoc, and often not particularly strategic. Sound familiar? If this describes you, you may be wasting valuable money on bits of marketing that don’t make the most impact possible because they don’t fit into your business strategy.
When you do makeshift marketing, there’s no way to measure the impact you’re having or ensure that all the different elements tie in together and cover all your bases. It’s often said that 90% of your marketing activity will not pay off immediately because marketing is very much a process and is cumulative. If you don’t start strategically and build from there, you won’t build momentum and get the most return on your investment.
This is why developing a marketing strategy is crucial in ensuring your marketing efforts are relevant, make the maximum impact, and deliver the best possible return on investment.
Why should you develop a marketing strategy?
1. It forces you to take a step back and reassess your operating environment and competitive landscape
The rate of change is so rapid in the modern world that you need to constantly re-evaluate your products and services, your target market, and your marketing initiatives to ensure you remain relevant. More and more, slight changes in legislation, economic factors, or the competitive landscape open new opportunities for your business.
2. It forces you to assess what makes you distinctive and gives you a competitive advantage
Often, we take our perceived competitive advantage for granted, but by looking strategically at your market, you are forced to determine whether you have a competitive advantage that is distinctive and makes you stand out, or whether your competitors are outdoing you in terms of innovation. You need to ask the right questions and listen to the answers.
3. It makes you articulate what you want your marketing to deliver
There is no doubt that when you put down in writing what you want to achieve, there is a stronger drive to achieve it. You instill a sense of accountability to your goals and you are forced to look at what the key marketing activities are that you need in place to achieve those objectives, as well as how to roll them out.
4. It helps you to be more focused on what you choose to do
Marketing costs money and it takes time, so to ensure that you are utilising your resources in the best possible way, you should identify the key activities that you can undertake that offer the maximum impact, and discard everything else. So often from a marketing perspective, we try to do far too much. Rather focus on doing less, but ensure it is the best you can do.
5. It helps you to measure your marketing success and check what’s working
Developing a marketing strategy ensures that you not only put key marketing measures in place but also allows you to measure them religiously to make sure that you remain on track.
Make the most of it…
Implementing an impactful and relevant marketing strategy that is consistent and in line with your business’s goals and objectives, short and long-term, is the best, and only way to ensure that you remain current in your market, as well as competitive. By evaluating your marketing strategy consistently, keeping it updated, staying open-minded, and being willing to adapt and change, you will reap the rewards for years to come! Remain focused and keep your eye on the strategic prize.
