Creating A Marketing Strategy

Marketing Budget

A marketing budget is an essential element of your strategy. Without allotting funds to hiring the right talent, using the right software, promoting on the right channels, and creating the right content, your marketing strategy won’t have a powerful impact. To get a high return on investment, you must first invest.

There are several ways to set a marketing budget:

1. Percentage of sales: One of the most common methods is to set the marketing budget as a percentage of projected or past sales. For example, a company may allocate 5-10% of projected sales to its marketing budget. This method is easy to implement and allows for flexibility as the budget can be adjusted based on changes in projected sales.
2. Competitive Parity: Another approach is to set the budget based on the marketing expenses of competitors in the same industry. This method helps ensure that a company is not under or over-investing in marketing compared to its competitors.
3. Objectives and Goals: A third method is to set the budget based on specific marketing objectives and goals. For example, a company may have a goal to increase brand awareness or market share, and the budget would be allocated to support those specific objectives.
4. Historical data: Some companies use historical data such as past spending, ROI and/or performance to set the marketing budget. This method allows companies to see how much they have been spending on marketing in the past and what kind of results they were able to achieve with that budget.
5. Combination: Some companies use a combination of these methods to set their marketing budget. This approach allows them to consider different factors and make a more informed decision.

Ultimately, the best method will depend on your specific circumstances, such as its size, industry, marketing goals, and financial situation. It’s important to regularly review and adjust the budget as needed to align with the company’s overall business strategy and goals.

Remember that you can always start small — hyper-focusing your budget on one or two highly targeted efforts — and build upon them once you generate an ROI.

Competitor Analysis

Knowing your competition is key when creating a marketing strategy. Otherwise, you risk “making very poor assumptions” without measurable results. Worse, you won’t know whether you’re differentiating yourself enough from the competition and effectively drawing the attention of your intended audience.

Competitor analysis is the process of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of a company’s competitors in order to gain a competitive advantage. There are several ways to conduct competitor analysis, including:

1. Market Research: Conducting market research, such as surveys or focus groups, to gather information about customers’ perceptions and preferences for competitors’ products or services.
2. Competitive Intelligence: Collecting and analyzing data on competitors, such as their financial performance, market share, product offerings, and marketing strategies.
3. Benchmarking: Comparing a company’s performance metrics, such as productivity or customer satisfaction, to those of competitors.
4. SWOT Analysis: Conducting a SWOT analysis, which involves identifying a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to its competitors.
5. Monitoring social media: Keeping track of competitor’s online presence and monitoring their activity on social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
6. Direct observation: Visiting competitors’ stores, attending their events and trade shows, and observing their operations, products, and services.
7. Purchase and use their product or service: Experience the product or service of the competitors, this will help to understand the value proposition, customer experience and pain points.

It’s important to conduct competitor analysis on a regular basis, as the competitive landscape can change quickly. This will help companies identify opportunities for improvement and make strategic decisions to stay competitive in the market.

You might already have an idea of whom your competitors are, but it’s still essential to sit down and identify them. You might end up uncovering a new or surprise competitor who’s after your target buyer’s attention and engagement.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

Segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) are three important concepts in modern marketing that are used to identify, evaluate, and select target markets.

Segmentation refers to the process of dividing a market into smaller groups of consumers with similar needs or characteristics. This allows companies to identify specific segments of the market that are most likely to be interested in their products or services. There are several ways to segment a market, such as by demographics, geographic location, behaviour, or psychographics.

Targeting refers to the process of choosing specific segments of the market to focus on. This involves evaluating the different market segments and selecting those that are most likely to be profitable or have the highest potential for growth. Companies use different criteria to evaluate market segments, such as the size of the segment, its growth potential, and its level of competition.

Positioning refers to the process of creating a specific image or perception of a product or brand in the minds of consumers. This is typically achieved through a combination of advertising, branding, and other marketing efforts. The goal of positioning is to differentiate a product or brand from competitors and create a unique and desirable image in the minds of consumers. This image should be relevant to the target market and align with the overall marketing strategy.

STP is an important process for companies to go through in order to effectively reach their target market. By using segmentation to identify specific market segments, targeting to select the most profitable segments, and positioning to create a unique image for their product or brand, companies can increase their chances of success in the marketplace.

It’s important to note that STP process is not a one-time activity, it’s a continuous process that should be reviewed and updated as the market, consumer needs and company’s objectives change.

Segmentation, Targeting and positioning are essential components of a successful marketing strategy, and they work together to help companies effectively reach and communicate with their target markets.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategy that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a specific target audience with the goal of driving profitable customer action. There are several key elements to a successful content marketing strategy:

1. Target Audience: Identifying the target audience is the first and most important step in content marketing. Knowing who the audience is, what they need and what they want, will help to create relevant and valuable content that will resonate with them.
2. Content creation: Creating high-quality, engaging, and relevant content is the heart of content marketing. This can include a variety of formats such as blog posts, videos, infographics, e-books, webinars, and more. The content should be aligned with the target audience’s needs and interests, and aim to educate, inform or entertain them.
3. Content promotion: Creating content is just the first step, the next step is to promote it effectively. This can be done through a variety of channels, such as social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, and paid advertising.
4. Measuring and Analysing: Measuring the performance of the content is important to understand the impact of the content marketing strategy on the business objectives. This will help to understand what works and what doesn’t, and make adjustments accordingly.
5. Integration: Content marketing should be integrated with other marketing efforts, such as website, SEO, social media, email marketing and advertising to maximize the impact and reach of the content.
6. Consistency: Consistency is key to building trust and authority with the target audience. It’s important to keep the content flowing and consistent in terms of tone, frequency and message to maintain engagement.
7. Storytelling: Storytelling is a powerful tool for content marketing. It’s a way to connect with the audience on an emotional level and make the content more memorable and engaging.

Content marketing is a long-term strategy that requires consistent effort and dedication to create valuable, relevant, and high-quality content for the target audience. By focusing on these elements, companies can effectively attract and engage their target audience, drive profitable customer action and achieve their business objectives.

Marketing Metrics

Marketing metrics are quantitative marketing measurements that are used to evaluate the effectiveness of a company’s marketing efforts. They provide a way to track progress, measure success, and identify areas for improvement. There are several key metrics that are commonly used in marketing:

1. Traffic: This metric measures the number of visitors to a website or social media page. It’s an important metric as it indicates the level of interest in a company’s products or services.
2. Conversion Rate: This metric measures the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form. It’s a key metric as it indicates how well a company’s marketing efforts are driving sales or leads.
3. Return on Investment (ROI): This metric measures the profitability of a company’s marketing efforts. It’s calculated by dividing the revenue generated by the cost of the marketing campaign. A high ROI indicates that a company’s marketing efforts are generating a good return on investment.
4. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): This metric measures the cost of acquiring a new customer. It’s calculated by dividing the total cost of marketing efforts by the number of new customers acquired. A low CAC indicates that a company’s marketing efforts are efficient in acquiring new customers.
5. Lifetime Value (LTV): This metric measures the value of a customer over their lifetime. It’s calculated by multiplying the average purchase value by the number of purchases per year and the average customer lifespan. A high LTV indicates that a company’s marketing efforts are successful in retaining customers.
6. Engagement: This metric measures the level of engagement with a company’s content. It can be measured through metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and views. Engagement is important as it indicates the level of interest in a company’s content and how well it resonates with the target audience.
7. Brand awareness: This metric measures the level of awareness of a company’s brand. It can be measured through metrics such as brand recall, brand recognition, and brand preference. Brand awareness is important as it indicates the level of familiarity of the target audience with the company’s brand, and how well it stands out in the market.

These are just a few examples of the metrics that can be used in marketing. The best marketing metrics are the ones that align with a company’s business objectives and can be used to track progress towards achieving those objectives. By using these metrics, companies can gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of their marketing efforts, and make data-driven decisions to improve their marketing strategies.