Marketing strategies are not abstract concepts written in on complex business plans, only to be known by executives and discussed in hush-hush tones.
Instead, they are visible living concepts and approaches to be implemented enterprise-wide and deep into the fabric of your organization.
The best strategies are indistinguishable from the ethos of the organization itself and so permeates the organization, that it is visible, audible, and felt by customers and the public.
In this article, I am going to share with you somehow to create a winning marketing strategy for your company.
Create your business goals
Share your goals
Integrate your efforts
Allocate resources
Encourage brainstorming
Be willing to change
Create your business goals
The Academic Exercise:
At the end of each financial year, businesses assess their performance and then make projections about the upcoming year. The complexity of this activity is purely dependent on the industry to which you belong and the size of the organization.
All of this is done with the assumption of a stable economic environment and the deduction of social-economic trends that may affect the company. In essence, you are deciding how hard your company will work in the upcoming year with the purpose of continuous growth in mind.
This results in the creation of your business goals. They are the skeleton of your overall strategic plan since it constitutes the facts from which all assumptions are made, and tactics to be applied to your company’s high-value areas. These areas can be, but are not limited to finance, human resources, customer service, and the reason you are reading this article- Marketing.
When you have your skeleton in place, you will create strategies for each goal item to facilitate its attainment.
Share your goals with your team!
It's very important to share the goals of the organisation with your high-level employees. It will allow them to be in the know and place management decisions into context for the short and long term. Your marketing strategy should be treated in the same way. Marketing can be both academic and highly subjective at the same time.
These goals should be diluted to your rank and file employees as well, so that they know the intentions of the company and have a sense of awareness about how they contribute to the high level business goals of the organisation. Some organizations even use a "trickle up " effect which allows input from line employees to contribute to the organization's goal.
Integrate your efforts:
Successful marketing efforts are those that transcend departments. They originate from the top and spread from the bottom in an exchange of information, action and ideas. If your marketing efforts are known only to managers and the marketing team, you are missing the mark. Marketing is an area of your organisation that permeates` all others because of its deep connection to sales, customer acquisition, customer retention, profits, and organisation growth. The ideal marketing strategy has input from at least one other functional are of your business eg. Marketing and Customer service, Sales, customer service and Information technology, Marketing and finance
Allocate resources
Marketing cannot be achieved without human and financial resources, no matter the quantity. Your investment in marketing is directly propostional to the visibility of your product and the amount of awareness of your company. However, this should be done with thought, consideration and meaning. Audience and target market demographics, psychographics, and purchasing behavior all play a role in how, when, where, and why you utilize messages or tell stories about your company or brand the way you do.
Marketing needs the same level of careful thought as your balance sheets, since I am sure that we can agree , that marketing sure does affect it. The resources of the mind, creative ideations, graphics, wording, and positioning should be addressed with t.he same level of intention as your budget
Have you discovered any new approaches so far? The final two are my favourites, because it involves my favourite input, people.
Encourage Brainstorming
Liner thinking is the enemy of the creative process, therefore this should not be the method by which you devise your marketing strategy. Instead, encourage a flourish of random thought, discussions and out of the box ideas. Fostering an environment where ideas are welcome can make your team feel a part of the company organically. Rewards and tokens for winning concepts can also help to stimulate this culture. Not all ideas will be used, but they may be the basis for some fantastic ideas that connect and resonate with your customers.
Be willing to change.
Be willing to modify your strategy or your activities based on real-time information, and emerging trends that you may not have considered when creating your initial plan. Remember, the goal is to create a winning strategy for business success and not to stick to the plan for the sake of sticking to the ‘plan.
Being able to pivot is a skill that we are being forced to develop to thrive despite the era’s challenges. Ensure that your organization is agile enough to capitalize on opportunities that align with your business goals.
Is there any step that may be a challenge for your company? Share it with us below.