How to Develop a Successful Marketing Strategy

Preparing a viable and successful marketing business plan can be a time-consuming job, but it is crucial for the success of an organisation. Especially in the early stages of a company’s development, a functioning and well-planned strategy is key.

Take a look at this article to get a clear idea of how to prepare a successful marketing strategy.

What is a marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy can be defined as an organisation’s comprehensive plan for contacting people and converting them into customers for its products and services. The strategy usually includes a value proposition, critical marketing messages and information about the target audience.

People can get confused between marketing strategies and marketing plans, as they usually come hand-in-hand, but they are in fact two different things. A marketing plan is a document that includes the types and timings of marketing activities that will be carried out by the organisation. In comparison, a marketing strategy paints a big picture of what the organisation has to offer to prospective and present customers. While preparing this strategy, you should keep the following in mind:

• Customer segmentation;

• Promotional campaigns;

• Targeting and positioning;

• Monitoring and market analysis;

• Overall marketing plan.

Steps for creating a successful marketing strategy:

• Step 1 – Determine objectives and goals: The first step in this process is to lay out the organisation’s marketing objectives and goals. To make this step easier, you should bare the following in mind:

• Define the organisation’s overall vision;

• Identify the market opportunities, target market and core competencies;

• Consider the end-to-end consumer journey.

• Step 2 – Start preparing the overall strategy: It is important to include your entire team during the brainstorming process in this step. Co-creating strategies will involve the everyone and therefore reduce the chance of mistakes being made. During this process, you need to ensure certain elements are included in the strategy, such as:

• Audience: Think who exactly are you targeting in this strategy, and remember that the more specific the strategy, the more customers it will attract.

• Objectives and goals: Plan the objectives you are trying to achieve with this strategy, it could be anything from acquiring more customers to increasing traffic on your website or increasing revenue. Having the objectives in place will play an important role in determining the programmes and policies in the marketing strategy.

• Channels: The channels you employ will reach out to your target audience but will depend on the preferences of the customers. You should think about how they would view content, for example, do they spend time on the Internet or would they be more likely to read a newspaper.

• Metrics: Consider how you are going to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the marketing strategy.

• Budget: Prepare a budget for the marketing strategy that accounts for time, money and resources, and ensure that the strategy does not exceed that budget.

Once the programmes, plans and projects have been prepared for the marketing strategy, the next step in the process is to prioritise them in the order of importance. This should be done in collaboration with the entire marketing team as it leads to better results and keeps them involved in the decision-making process. Furthermore, during this phase, it is also important to think about any obstacles or contingencies that might occur and then plan for them .

• Step 3 – Divide the strategies into tactics: Once the strategies are shared with the team, it is advisable to assign one person to each one. This will help with the programmes and projects for each specific strategy, ultimately helping you achieve the predetermined marketing goals and objectives. In addition, listing each project under the corresponding strategy will improve efficiency and help avoid any confusion.

• Step 4 – Convert the programmes into repeatable templates: According to the strategies created, the programmes, plans and projects may be carried out on a regular basis. Hence, it is a good idea to prepare outlines for the strategies, programmes and plans; thus standardising the entire process and increasing efficiency .The standardisation process should be carried out in such a way that even if someone new is working on a programme, the quality of work should not drop. There are several other advantages of this, including:

• Helps in skipping the setup phase;

• Since the processes are standardised, there are reduced chances of missing any key steps;

• Increases the confidence of the person who is working on a project, even if it is for the first time;

• Mistakes are not repeated because it is easy to make changes to the standardised process based on previous mistakes.

• Step 5 – Keep track of the work: When the strategies are being executed, it is important to keep track of every project. Continuously having to ask for project updates and progress reports is important, but can be tedious job. You should therefore consider employing a tracker or software to help keep track the progress of a particular strategy in detail, as well as checking your overall marketing strategy.

Tips to make your marketing strategies more effective:

• Employ a social media plan;

• Create videos to make customers interested in your products or services;

• Create innovative and interactive content;

• Leverage search engine optimisation (SEO);

• Design an incentive that is offered by marketers to potential customers in exchange for their contact information, for example, checklists, whitepapers, eBooks or templates. These are known as lead magnets.

• Use Facebook ads to reach more specific audience groups, based on gender, age, interests or location;

• Integrate email marketing into your activities.

London School of Business and Finance (LSBF) offers a CPD in Strategic marketing. If you want to learn how to prepare successful strategies, and gain in-depth insights into the strategic marketing process, marketing communication and the marketing environment, this is the course for you!

This article was written by Varun Mehta and edited by Amelia Hayward-Cole.