The importance of a marketing strategy

When starting a business it is important to have a marketing strategy to allow the public to understand and gain awareness of the business and brand. Without marketing your brand will struggle to be found and customers will be limited.

Small business often fail within year 1-5 and keeping the business going takes various factors including having an effective marketing strategy.

Using marketing strategies helps to determine the target audience for your services or product, allowing you to cater your marketing techniques to the specific customers.

Focusing time and money into areas which will yield the most results. Having a marketing strategy will allow you to develop an overview of what works and what doesn’t to reach your customers and the business expenses can be used on worthwhile projects.

Allows you to interact and learn about your customers so you can improve and develop in the future to have lasting success.

What your strategy could include…

• Which social channels will be used, often it is best to start with one a time to build up your knowledge of what works for your business and customers. Using LinkedIn, Facebook, X or Instagram are popular ones for businesses, it’s best to find which channel suits your brand the best.
• Your company vision and goals. Where do you want your brand to go and what kind of image do you want to be known for, sticking to this vision will help your execution remain on brand and be truthful to the business. Customers want to build trust for a brand and this will increase repeat sales and recommendations too.
• What is your budget and how much of this can you allocate to a marketing strategy? It will help to know the revenue your business needs to bring in and how your marketing strategy can help with this.
• Competitor research, this will help you understand how similar brands are utilising marketing techniques and what works or not. This could transfer to your business to improve and know who you are competing against.
• A timeline of when everything should be implemented, timelines should be logical and topical, if your campaign drops at an appropriate time this will improve your brand awareness. Having a timeline will also keep your content fresh and up to date, having content which goes out regularly is the best method as social media users will react well to an active page.

The Fastest growing Online customer acquisition method

• Influencer marketing
• Organic search
• Emailing
• Paid Search
• Display Advertising
• Affiliate marketing

LinkedIn found that salespeople using social media to sell are 51% more likely to his their sale quotas. Using social media provides the largest reach to new and existing customers. Using influencers and celebrities as brand ambassadors on social media has also been proven to be an effective method. Their followers will trust and be influenced from their recommendations supplying your business with new customers.

Organic searches come from making sure you are up to speed with SEO techniques for your business to appear to google users organically. People are less likely to click on paid ads and paid searches than something organic as they tend to be more trusting of a page which appears to be authentic.