Jumbling Elements Of Marketing Strategy For Success

Introduction

We have probably heard the story that a company without a marketing strategy is like waving to a person in the dark – you do not know if you are waving at the right person, and the person does not even know that you are waving at them!

Companies of all sizes, in all industries and all markets, need a marketing strategy to run their business. Whether the strategy is a formal, beautifully written and heavy document, or a few bullet points on a piece of paper, a strategy is important to help guide your company in investing effectively in its brands and marketing to make the best impact.

What is a “marketing strategy”?

A marketing strategy is a blueprint or plan that lists, describes, and defines your company’s marketing approach to achieve specific KRAs or outcomes. Of course, the main KRA of any marketing effort is to reach prospective consumers and convert them into customers of the company’s brand or product.

What is a “good marketing strategy”?

The ideal marketing strategy contains three high-level elements:

1. Customer demographic data
2. The company’s value proposition
3. Key brand messages

A good marketing strategy guides your company and its marketing team to make the right marketing decisions and helps to focus your company’s efforts and campaigns in line with the company’s overall goals.

A well-defined marketing strategy should achieve and communicate a clear and sustainable competitive advantage for your company or brand over its competitors in the market.

Influences on marketing strategy

Marketing strategies are influenced by both external and internal factors.

External factors could include elements like

1. Customer experience and feedback
2. Competitor analysis
3. Overall socio-economic environment in which the company operates

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Internal factors could include:

1. The strength of the marketing / product / brand mix
2. Budgetary allocations and constraints
3. Performance analysis of different markets in which the company operates

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Therefore, your marketing strategy must be a dynamic roadmap, with space for planned initiatives and reactions to market developments and changes.

What are the elements of a marketing strategy?

So, what are the principal components or elements of a marketing strategy? There are certain fundamental elements that all marketing strategies should include. These are:

1. Target audience
   1. A target audience is the set of individuals most likely to identify and engage with your brand and become its customers.
   2. While brands have universal appeal, most brands appeal to defined consumer categories, which are brought out through market segmentation.
   3. Market segmentation consists of demographics, geography or location, psychographics or lifestyle, and behaviour.
   4. Once the customer base has been segmented, your company can create buyer personas to structure the target audience.
2. Goals and objectives
   1. A goal is a broad definition of your company’s wishes to achieve in a given timeframe or market.
   2. An objective is a specific set of actions that helps your company achieve its goals.
   3. A SWOT analysis is a good way to identify actionable goals and objectives.
   4. SMART goals are vital to a good marketing strategy – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound.
3. Competitor analysis
   1. Competition defines your company or brand’s success in the marketplace and in customers’ minds.
   2. Competitor analysis gives valuable information on
      1. Market forecasting and potential opportunities
      2. Your target audience
      3. The market you operate within
      4. Competitor products & product development horizons
      5. Pricing trends
   3. Competitor analysis also provides a valuable benchmark against which you can measure your company’s performance.
   4. Competitor analysis should ideally be a continuous process – always keep your ear to the ground and know what others in your industry are doing. This way, you can be a step ahead of the others.
4. Awareness
   1. Customers need to be aware of the company’s products / brands to search for them or purchase them.
   2. Advertising, word-of-mouth promotions, online visibility, and focused messaging are among the key tools that can drive and sustain awareness.
5. Content design
   1. Marketing today is more than just a loud, pushy promotion tactic to drive sales.
   2. Customers today want their brand to give them value at every stage of the funnel.
   3. Good content design and marketing show that your company is trustworthy, knowledgeable and reliable.
   4. The content must be relevant to be useful to the customer.
   5. Content that aligns your company’s purpose with the requirements of your customers will strengthen your brand and provide long-term value to your customers.
6. Messaging approach
   1. Your company or brand should always communicate a clear and consistent message.
   2. The message should be clear, inviting and a call to action.
   3. The messaging should always highlight the benefits that your company or brand offers to the customer.
7. Measurement
   1. Your marketing strategy is not set in stone.
   2. You need to know if the marketing strategy achieves the desired objectives, goals and intentions set out in it.
   3. It is therefore important to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy at regular intervals.
   4. Setting parameters to evaluate your marketing strategy’s various components helps you see how well your strategy is performing in practice and can also highlight areas of improvement.
8. Prepare a marketing plan
   1. A marketing plan is an integral part of your marketing strategy.
   2. It is a document that details specific marketing activities of the company for a defined period – usually one year – and includes activity timetables, budgets allocated, expected outcomes and execution logistics of each initiative.
   3. This is a highly dynamic document that should be agile enough to be adapted to rapid changes in external and internal influences that can impact your marketing strategy.

A successful marketing strategy will always the following flow:

1. Understand your customer
2. Identify your potential customers
3. Analyse your market and competition
4. Define your company’s marketing mix
5. Establish the positioning of your brand
6. Set the marketing budget
7. Prepare the marketing plan

Marketing Strategy v/s Marketing Plan

As we have seen above, a marketing strategy gives a “big picture” and has a life span that can cover several years. It is a high-level document that does not change with fluctuations in operating circumstances on the ground.

A marketing plan is a derivative of the marketing strategy. It is a time-bound, working document covering the great 4Ps of marketing:

1. Product
2. Price
3. Promotion
4. Place

Simply put, the marketing strategy has the details of where your company should be. A marketing plan shows how you can get there.

The 4 Cs of marketing – a new approach to marketing strategy

Historically, marketing strategies approached the market from a product point of view, which gave rise to the 4 Ps described above. This approach was a “seller’s approach” and made marketing a tool for achieving growth through sales.

This approach was challenged by Robert Lauterborn, a marketing professor and academic. He wrote an article in the Advertising Age in 1990 describing a new, customer-centric called “The 4Cs of Marketing”. The 4 Cs of marketing can be briefly defined as:

1. Customer
   1. Focus on identifying and filing a consumer need.
   2. By understanding your customers, you can create a product or service that meets their needs.
2. Cost:
   1. The expense that both companies and customers have to incur to fulfil the need.
   2. Note that this is not the price of the product or service.
   3. The cost here includes tangible and intangible elements.
3. Convenience
   1. Describes how and where the customer buys your product.
   2. The marketplace is no more a single geographical location – it can be on your customer’s screen!
4. Communication
   1. Design and implement a fruitful interaction between the brand and the consumer at all stages of the customer’s decision-making process.
   2. Communication that allows customers to interact with your brand personally will build greater customer loyalty.

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The 4Cs approach to designing a marketing strategy has gained importance and momentum with the growth of the internet and digital channels such as social media.

Customers today do more research and find out more information on which brands or companies best suit their needs. This has led to companies changing their marketing approach and adopting a more “customer-centric” process which places the customer at the core of their activities and makes marketing a stand-alone and very important component of their business.

Conclusion

Any company requires a properly thought-out marketing strategy to identify and capitalise on the multiple business opportunities available today. All companies like to achieve higher customer loyalty, more sales, better ROI and more brand awareness. A structured and defined marketing strategy helps the company achieve these goals in a focused and time-bound manner.

A marketing strategy is a game plan to identify and engage potential consumers and make them viable and long-term customers of your company. Your marketing strategy should be designed around your company’s value proposition and should always drive a sustainable competitive advantage over other companies.

Remember that a successful marketing strategy will:

1. Tie in your marketing team to specific marketing goals
2. Link those marketing goals to overall business objectives
3. Help your company be more customer-centric and drive its marketing from a customer’s point of view

A successful marketing strategy cannot be developed overnight. It requires time, effort, and all stakeholders’ support to come to fruition and be implemented.