A good marketing strategy gives the business a key focus, so to help new entrepreneurs develop a winning strategy for success, Source Marketing Direct have created this valuable guide.
Marketing is becoming far more complex. As the focus begins to shift to content and personalisation, strategic planning is becoming highly important states sales and marketing experts Source Marketing Direct. A comprehensive marketing strategy not only provides a business with a ‘map’ of the areas in which they need to improve, it also helps to narrow down options and ensure key values are upheld within all marketing mediums. This ‘map’ is vital in maintaining consistency within marketing, which studies have shown to be a highly effective way of boosting customer loyalty. Creating a marketing map ensures everyone in an organisation understands what the high-level strategy is and how the organisation as a whole plans to achieve it through goals and initiatives.
To help businesses create a cohesive and effective marketing map, Source Marketing Direct have offered the following step-by-step guide.
Set Goals
Setting goals not only provides clarity, it also creates a bridge between ideas and action. All goals should be measurable and easy to track so that performance can be monitored both by management and the marketing team.
Create initiatives
Creating initiatives allows an organisation to focus their attention on key areas and objectives by giving them a completion ‘due date’. This will not only make it clear to workers that these tasks are integral to the overall success of the business, but creating initiatives will also act as a driver and encourage individuals to utilise creative thinking and engage in their work on a greater level.
Define personas
Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different customer types a business is trying to market to. Defining these customer types is an essential practice if a business is to connect with their audience on a personal level and show that they understand and respect their consumer’s individualities. When defining personas, businesses need to investigate what customers are trying to achieve by investing in their brand, and how they will be impacted if they don’t find their desired outcome.
Share progress
‘How do you expect your marketing team to make any real progress if you keep them in the dark about results?’ states Source Marketing Direct. Asking marketers to blindly create campaigns without providing them with feedback is not only inefficient; it impacts morale and leads to a drop in quality. Businesses should be constantly sharing progress and new ideas to ensure everyone is aware of the bigger picture.
With the majority of their independent sales contractors working towards starting their own firms in the future, Source Marketing Direct regularly encourage them to create their own ‘maps’ so that they get into the habit of developing goals and strategies that will drive success. These maps allow them to be strategic about key practices such as time management, self-directed learning and hitting sales targets, which helps them to achieve greater results for clients and speed up their professional development.