Introduction
Marketing is the process of creating an appealing message that attracts people to a company's products and services. It's difficult to do well, but the payoff can be big. That's why it's important to build a marketing strategy from scratch, one step at a time.
Marketing is more than just slapping a message on a website and hoping it sticks. Marketing is a series of steps that take you from the need to be marketed to the place where your target audience can find you, whether through Internet searches, local business directories, or direct mail. This guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to develop your marketing strategy for local businesses.
1. Start with a market research plan.
Before you start developing a marketing strategy, it's important to understand your target audience. You should have a clear understanding of their needs and wants, as well as their budget.
After you've done the research and identified your target audience, start working on a marketing plan.
Here's how:
1. Start with a market research plan.
2. Identify your target market and competitors.
3. Create an action plan for reaching your customers through social media, email campaigns, events, and more!
Your marketing strategy is the roadmap you use to chart your business in the future. It's a plan that explains how you're going to get from where you are now to where you want to be — and why.
At its core, your marketing strategy is the expression of the value proposition that will drive your business forward and enable it to thrive. It's also the foundation for all other elements of your communications (including design and copywriting).
The first step in developing a marketing strategy is identifying who you are as a business and what your core values are — because only then can you create a brand message that resonates with potential customers.
Once you've identified those core values, write them down in a document so that they're easy for everyone involved to access. This helps everyone understand where your business is headed and why it matters — which will help keep everyone on the same page when it comes time to develop a marketing strategy.
2. Analyze your market research data.
Once you've identified the potential customers and their needs, it's time to dig deeper into the market research data. Analyzing this information will give you a better understanding of how best to reach out to your target audience. For example, if you're targeting consumers over 50 years old, it might be helpful to segment them by gender and income level.
The best way to create a marketing strategy is by analyzing the data that has been collected from the research. The first step in this process is to analyze the data you have collected and determine where there are opportunities or challenges. If you are not sure what needs to be done, ask yourself if there are any trends in your data that indicate an opportunity for growth or change.
Analyze your data using Excel worksheets and graphs to identify the problem areas or opportunities in your business. Then, use this information to develop marketing strategies that can help you meet these needs and increase revenue.
3. Identify your target audience.
Your target audience will determine the content and format of your marketing strategy, as well as how you want to present that content. For example, if you're targeting a specific kind of business owner or manager, you may want to focus on their needs and interests and tailor your content accordingly.
If you're looking to attract a larger audience (such as a general audience), it might be more effective to create more general content that appeals to multiple demographics and can be shared by anyone in your target market.
The first step in developing a marketing strategy is identifying your target audience.
Your target audience is the group of people you wish to reach with your marketing efforts. Identifying your target audience will help you determine what kind of messages you need to send and how often. It also helps you decide whether your marketing strategy should be online or offline.
For example, if you're trying to sell a product that appeals to women, you may want to consider creating an ad campaign that targets this specific demographic. You can then use that same campaign for other products as well.
You should also consider who will be using your products or services, such as children, seniors, and people with disabilities. These groups may require different types of messages than more traditional customers do; for example, children might respond better to videos than adults do because they're more likely to connect emotionally with them (and remember them).
4. Determine your marketing goals and objectives.
Before you can determine what your marketing strategy should be, you need to have a clear idea of the goal or objective of your business. What do you want to accomplish with your marketing efforts? What is it that you want customers to do as a result of their experience with your brand?
You may have heard of the “Sell More” principle. This is an idea that has been around for a long time now, but it does make sense.
If you don't know what you want from your marketing, then how will it help grow sales? It is also important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to marketing strategies — every business is unique. Your marketing plan should reflect these differences in order to be effective at driving sales growth.
Marketing goals and objectives are the reasons behind your actions as a marketer. It’s important to have them in mind, so you can develop a plan to achieve them.
Your marketing goals should be specific and measurable, while your objectives should be strategic and long-term.
Here are some examples of each:
Marketing goal: Increase the number of people who sign up for our free trial by 50%.
Marketing objective: We will develop an email list of 300 new subscribers by the end of January.
5. Establish the most important metrics for measuring success.
Every company has a different set of priorities, so you'll want to narrow down your goals and figure out what's most important for your business.
Some of the metrics you'll want to track include:
Number of new customers acquired
Number of repeat customers acquired
Return on investment (ROI) from marketing efforts
Conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who convert into customers)
A marketing strategy is not just a list of things to do. It's a framework for thinking about your business and how it connects with customers.
A marketing strategy is about identifying the top priorities for your organization, understanding what you need to do to achieve them, and then turning those priorities into actionable plans.
To develop your own marketing strategy, you need to establish what metrics matter most to you. You can start by thinking about the types of metrics that help you make decisions about customer acquisition, retention, and growth.
If you want to know how much your marketing efforts are really helping your business, you need to measure them.
Establishing the right metrics will help you understand what’s working and what isn’t. And it will help you see where you need to spend more time and resources.
To establish the right metrics, ask yourself:
If not, don’t use it as a metric for measuring success. For example, if your campaign is intended to increase sales by 10%, but instead increases sales by only 5%, then it’s not a good indicator of success.
6. Choose a marketing tool or two (or three) to get started.
When you’re just starting out with marketing, it can be hard to know what to do.
Here are some steps that can help get you started:
1. Choose a marketing tool or two (or three) to get started.
2. Find out what your competitors are doing and how they’re doing it.
3. Choose one of your competitors as a benchmark for your own marketing plan and tactics.
4. Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and make plans based on that information so that you can improve at the same time as you grow your business and market share.
So you have a solid strategy in place and you're ready to get your marketing plan rolling. The first step is to choose a marketing tool or two (or three) that will help you reach your target audience and drive sales.
If you don't know where to start, here are some options:
Social media marketing: Social media is the most popular form of digital marketing today, with Facebook leading the pack. The best way to use social media is to create content that your audience wants to see by using keywords in your posts or by adding photos or videos that they can share with their friends.
Email marketing: Email remains one of the most effective ways for businesses to reach customers. It's also cost-effective because it doesn't require much time or effort from your team. You can send emails as often as wanted and even use email automation tools like Mailchimp or Constant Contact so that every time an email reaches its target audience, it knows when it needs to be read and opened.
7. Build a marketing budget and forecast sales (or leads).
Your marketing budget should be determined by your business goals, the expected return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts, and the resources available to you.
You can create a marketing budget in a variety of ways. One option is to add up all of the expenses you have for each of the marketing channels you're interested in, such as Facebook ads, website design, and so on.
The other option is to use an actual conversion rate when calculating your potential income from each channel if you have an existing product or service that's already generating revenue.
Whatever method you choose, make sure it reflects how much money you'll need to spend over time to reach your goals. The more accurate your estimates are, the better positioned you'll be to make smart decisions about how much money to allocate toward different channels or types of advertising.
A marketing budget is the most important part of building a marketing strategy. It's the money you need to spend on advertising and other promotional efforts.
A marketing budget is also the one thing you can't change once you've set it. You can adjust your ad budget and make adjustments in how much you spend on each campaign, but if there's no money allocated for marketing, none of those changes will do anything.
It's crucial that your business has a marketing budget in place before starting any kind of campaign — especially if it's an ad campaign. A poorly planned campaign can lead to wasted cash and lost opportunity.
8. Create an implementation plan and timeline for your strategy execution—and set up workflows so you can start applying it right away!
A marketing strategy is a plan of action that’s created with the end goal in mind. It’s not just a collection of ideas and tactics, but rather a step-by-step guide to help you achieve your business goals.
A marketing strategy can help you:
Understand your customers better.
Create loyal customers.
Make more money by selling more products or services to existing customers.
Make your business stand out from competitors.
Deliver messages about your brand in ways that make sense for your audience.
In the last step, you will create an implementation plan and timeline for your strategy execution. This is an important step because you need to know how much time you have in order to understand where you are with your strategy, how much time it's going to take, and what is going to be the next steps of execution.
You can use a spreadsheet or other tools to document your plan and keep track of progress as you move through it. The best part about this approach is that it will help you avoid falling into the trap of setting up a big-picture vision too soon. Instead, you'll be able to see exactly what needs to happen in order for your marketing strategies to work.
Conclusion
All businesses need a good marketing strategy that outlines how and where their company will appear on the Internet, in print, and at events. Without a marketing strategy, a business cannot hope to be successful.
A marketing strategy is a reason why Facebook exists and why it will wipe Twitter out of existence. A good marketing strategy ensures that a business's efforts are not spread too thin while keeping the business relevant to its target audience.
There is no such thing as a quick or easy way to create a marketing strategy – every aspect of your business must be taken into account when creating one.