The difference between the success and the failure of a business lies in your marketing strategy. A marketing strategy is the techniques you use towards creating opportunities that lead to an increase in sales and providing you an edge over your competition.

A good strategy consists of long term activities that lead to the development of your business or brand. You should have a clear vision of where you want your business to be in the future and a clear direction of how to get there. But what makes up a good marketing strategy?

There Has to Be an Actual Need Before Selling

Your product or service has to offer a solution to a problem for you to stay in business. When creating a marketing plan, you need first to ask yourself, do people really need your product or service? You may be passionate about creating a product, but it has to provide value for you to last in the market.

Understanding Your Target Market

Knowing your potential market guarantees that your marketing efforts will not get lost in the noise. With the advent of the internet, it is now simpler to market your products or services to potential buyers. However, everyone is trying to sell something.

You have to know who you are speaking to for your target customers to respond and purchase your products. Are they male or female? What are their demographics and psychographics? After clearly identifying your target, find out what their immediate needs are, and fight to address them in your marketing campaign. If your target client prefers quality over anything else, then your marketing message should emphasize on the quality of your products or services. It would be best if you aimed to address their needs more successfully than your competitors.

Using an Appropriate Marketing Channel

Once you know who your target market is, you need to find out the market mediums you can use to reach them. Ideally, you want to use both offline and online means. There are several online methods to do this, such as email marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, and creating blog posts. While some methods can guarantee your exposure and help you reach a new group of individuals, you need to find ways to expand your authority continually. Many companies find that they need to fine-tune their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies, and find ways to generate more traffic to their website. The key is to diversify your methods after you have an inherent understanding of where to promote yourself. You may find that you need to get more traffic to your site because you have a competitor, and this is where hiring a PPC agency or marketing agency to give you more knowledge of where to place your promotions. But as you gain exposure, never lose sight of expanding your authority.

A good example is turning into audio marketing that is rapidly growing and creating new content for your business. Find good podcast guests to get access to a whole bunch of loyal podcast followers and widen your marketing range.

Understanding Your Buyer’s Journey

What is the journey that your buyer makes before they can purchase your product? How do they find your products? What triggers them to make a purchase? Before a buyer can make a purchase, they have to go through three distinct phases. First, they realize there is a problem that needs solving. Secondly, they research their options to find a solution, and finally, they decide on a product or service that will solve their problem and make a purchase. When you create a marketing plan, ensure it caters to the needs of the buyer through all the different stages. If not, your competitors may grab your buyers.

Get to Know Your Competition

You will gain a competitive advantage in the market by identifying your competitors and what they have to offer. You can take advantage of their weaknesses when creating your marketing strategy. It is an excellent idea to analyze the strategies they are using to market their business before you create your campaign.

Once you understand how they operate, you will know the level of threat each competitor poses to your business and find the appropriate ways you can respond to them.

Your Marketing Should Be Measurable

There are plenty of digital platforms that you can use to market your products. Additionally, there are various ways you can track your marketing campaign data. Use simple metrics to measure your marketing efforts to understand if your campaign is working.

You can track your referrals, the time visitors spend on your website pages, and the bounce rate, among other elements. The data can help evaluate your progress and determine any future steps.

Final Thought

While the aim of your marketing may be to increase your following, brand loyalty, or better market penetration, the ultimate goal is to ensure you continually generate leads. In your marketing journey, try to find a balance between the cost of marketing and the results you achieve. To maximize your ROI, you need to find ways to make your marketing more cost-effective.