We have all heard the word ‘strategy’ used in our day-to-day conversations. Whether you are talking about a project for your business or discussing a plan of action with a client, supervisor or even with your colleagues – strategy is ubiquitous.
In order to stand out amongst competitors, you most likely built your business around a unique idea. A product or service that you believed audiences would pick over others. Whether you are a local coffee shop in a small town or an infamous company like Apple that is looking to announce your next I-product release, you will need an effective strategy to determine a successful action plan.
Strategies are pathways or roadmaps that provide guidance and direction to achieve a business's short and long-term goals. They align with the business’s values and mission, making it easier for your team to work towards a common goal.
Speaking of strategy – our strategy is to ensure you are equipped with a basic understanding of the following items:
What is a marketing strategy and why is it important?
Provide you with easy strategies to implement for 2023
So, what is a marketing strategy, and why is it important?
Marketing strategies are comprehensive plans that outline your brand’s promotional efforts and help you set and benchmark marketing goals. They also provide guidance to the team by presenting ways for businesses to reach their target audience with the development of interesting and creative campaigns. A key takeaway is that your marketing strategy should coincide with the values of your business and ultimately create a competitive advantage over your competitors. Strategic marketing plans provide your marketing team with a standard that needs to be followed while determining the course of action related to product or service marketing campaigns.
For example, Spotify uses artificial intelligence and user moods to recommend music 'moods' over the traditional listing of genres like the 70s, 80s or 90s. Why, yes, I’d like to listen to “easy office” tunes so I don’t scare my coworkers with my eclectic taste for Weird Al. This marketing strategy allows Spotify to have the upper hand over other music streaming apps, making it the most used app in North America (Demandsage, 2022).
An effective marketing strategy has key features that contribute to the success of your brand. Here’s why they are important:
Marketing strategies ensure coordination among departments Successful marketing strategies take time and are usually built from a collaboration between different departments – marketing, sales, IT, business development, finance and more. A successful business is built on teamwork and cooperation and marketing strategies can help support this aspect of business operations. They allow ideation to flow between different departments, and in turn, produce efficient results while encouraging teamwork.
Marketing strategies allow brands to develop products best suited for their target audience When developing your marketing strategy, it is important to consider target audiences, buyer personas and any results pulled from your market research. This trifecta motivates the team to develop a strategy that is best suited for your ideal audience.
Marketing strategies let your brand have an edge over competitors Operating in a competitive industry, paired with the ever-changing dynamics of a business environment requires companies to stay up-to-date on trends and customer preferences while also implementing innovative changes. Marketing strategies can help your brand have an edge over the competition by providing strategic direction to your marketing team.
Now that we agree strategies are important, check out some of our recommendations on strategies that your brand can implement this year.
Using user generated content User Generated Content (UGC), or customer-generated content, is original content created directly by your customers instead of your company’s marketing team. UGC is not limited to photos, texts and videos, but can also include customer feedback, product reviews and posted positive experiences. UGC can be leveraged in creative ways to showcase the success of a product or service and its positive impact on users. Marketers can use qualitative content such as positive customer feedback and publish it as a weekly newsletter spotlight or a customer testimonial post on social media. The content essentially ends up serving multiple purposes – promoting a useful product or service attributes while also providing recognition to your customers.
Utilizing free, useful giveaways People appreciate free stuff. This small gesture of “giving away” branded items as part of an online contest, participation prize, table exhibit or expo can go a long way. Companies can also build new relationships or strengthen current ones through this simple process of information exchange. Your campaign will generate awareness while also providing folks with an item or bit of knowledge that they keep as a souvenir.
Reusing old content Look through past content – blogs, images, postings. Is the material still relevant and applicable to your audience? Whether it's taking an infographic and turning it into an Instagram Reel or video, converting a past campaign into Google Ads or even taking a blog/story and creating a complimentary article that ties into the same material, you would be surprised how much of your content can be repurposed or updated.
Marketing strategies allow you to showcase creativity and leverage innovative techniques that will ultimately allow you to have an edge over your competitors. Curating and implementing any strategy is important to the success of your brand.
Want to learn more about creating a strategic business marketing plan for 2023? Contact us today or subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
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