A marketing strategy gives you clarity on how to enter your target market and successfully do business.
It directs how businesses should make decisions and allocate resources to accomplish key marketing goals.
Below are some steps to take in crafting a go-to market strategy for business success.
1. Do your market research:
Well informed business goals and marketing decisions are based on having in-depth knowledge of your target market. Ensure you know things like market size and growth potential, to avoid setting unrealistic business goals.
2. Identify & align your business goals & marketing goals:
Align your marketing goals with S.M.A.R.T business goals outlined in your business plan.
For instance:
Business Goal: High paying clients.
Marketing Goal: Generate high-quality leads.
3. Know your target audience:
Your target audience are primarily those who need and can afford your product or service. Define them by demographic and psychographic information; age, job title, income, location, interests, and challenges.
4. Have a marketing budget:
Your marketing mix is determined by the strength of your allocated marketing finance.
Your budget will dictate if and how well you will leverage paid media. In a low budget case, you might have to rely a lot on owned media and earned media for your marketing channels.
5. Choose the most suitable marketing channel(s):
Decide on where to interact with your prospective clients, based on what you know about your target audience; their communication patterns, including how they buy and where they buy. Meet them where they are.
6. Examine your competition:
Do this to become aware of your competitive advantage. Lack of this awareness keeps you in the dark about what sets your business apart from your competitors. Learn what's working for them and what's not, you don't want to repeat their marketing errors.
7. Define your USP:
Your USP is your Unique Selling Point and it's that benefit you offer via your product or service that your competitors don't. This helps your brand to create a unique value proposition during marketing communication.
8. Create a feasible and actionable timeline:
For effective execution of your marketing strategy, create a schedule and milestones for each marketing goal. Be realistic about the expected time of accomplishment for each marketing goal.
9. Work back from your deadline:
To get number 8 right, this method suggests you schedule your project timeline from the end date backwards. Determine the latest time each execution activity has to be completed in order to still be able to meet the final deadline.
It is important to note that the business world is very dynamic. If one spends too much time designing a marketing strategy, it might be outdated before you get to execute it.
It is advisable to strategise well but swiftly, prioritise execution to test your strategy so you can optimise it for success.
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