Building a Winning Marketing Strategy for Your Business

A clear and effective marketing strategy is your roadmap to success. This newsletter equips you, the founders and marketing champions of SMEs, with the essential tools to navigate the marketing maze and propel your brand forward.

Let's begin with why this specific topic is so important and why people believe they have a strategy in place when in all actuality it's nothing more than a detailed plan. So who knows what the difference is between the two? Spoiler alert: A plan is simply a set of tasks which will lead you to achieve some specific goal. You start from point-A and a well-laid out plan can lead you to point-B fairly accurately. If you ask "but that has helped me achieve more sales and more reach on my social media, isn't that enough?" - for some it may be, absolutely. But once the plan achieves its goal it's done. A strategy is in place to guide you in the right direction. You can feel it like a strong tailwind, helping you gather speed in the process. Within a strategy you may have milestones and you may have several plans laid out, but the overarching objective, the vision of your company is what is being reached thanks to a well-crafted strategy.

Building Your Marketing Strategy Foundation:

1. Know Your Why & Who: Start by defining your mission statement and target audience. What makes your brand unique? Who are you trying to reach? Understanding these core elements helps tailor your marketing efforts - from where to reach them to how to talk to them once you have them in front of you.
2. Setting SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound goals keep you focused. Outline what you want to achieve with your marketing strategy by aligning it with your company's vision. The plans within can then be focused on brand awareness, increased website traffic, or lead generation.
3. Competitive Landscape Analysis: Research your competitors. What are their marketing strengths and weaknesses? Identifying your competitive advantage allows you to differentiate your brand and target your marketing efforts more effectively. After all, a marketing strategy is the way your customers will keep you in their minds. Nike's strategy is to establish a strong and distinctive brand image that conveys athleticism, performance, and empowerment. They focus on innovation, sustainability, and expanding their global reach.

Crafting Your Marketing Mix:

The marketing mix, also known as the 4Ps in most textbooks, is a framework for making strategic marketing decisions. Let's explore each element whilst simultaneously adding that much needed 5th P in the beginning:

• People: Your number 1 goal is to find out more about the people you will be servicing. Write out all your stakeholders - not just clients and owners. Employees, suppliers, shareholders, communities and everybody else who may be affected by your brand should make this list. Figure out how each person would be affected. Whose problems are you solving, what are they gaining from you and by thinking about it in this way, you aren't just stating as part of your PR that you're a "Customer centric" company - you become a "People Focused" company and embodying this philosophy will help you more than any PR if done correctly.
• Product: Focus on the value proposition of your product or service. What problem does it solve for your target audience? What are the features that are highly requested and helpful and which are simply nice to have. Are your products being used as primary value givers or for secondary benefits users can get out of them? Don't simply keep focusing on newer features because innovation requires constant change. Ask your customers and stay ahead of the curve by focusing on them.
• Price: Determine a pricing strategy that aligns with your value proposition, target market, and once again overall company strategy. Your competitor pricing is something that you should focus on only if you have no way of determining what your products should cost by the factors. This is the absolutely weakest link in this specific "P". I had a discussion with a client this week who said that because their focus is on the fans of their football club and on the local community that they do not wish to raise prices for any of the bigger matches where a higher audience is expected. They prefer hearing the roar of the crowd and the whole community being able to stand by their football players rather than getting some extra euros. That's what can be seen when culture influences strategy!
• Place: Consider your distribution channels. Where will your target audience encounter your product or service? This could be your website, online marketplaces, or physical stores, sometimes it could be singularly focused on Social Media but I honestly haven't seen a company with a single focus in years. A multi-channel approach has proved a lot more useful to a lot more of my clients. Their fans have different wants and ways of interacting with them.
• Promotion: This is where your creative marketing magic comes in! Identify the channels you'll use to promote your brand, such as social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, or public relations. Create a communication strategy that will work for you and will engage fans organically. Promotion is not the same as paid advertisements, though ads fall under this category.

The Power of Data-Driven Marketing:

All of those P's above must NOT be pulled out of your @$$ in a board meeting one random Monday. Don't operate in the dark. Leverage data and analytics to find out the answer to all of your P's. What works and what doesn't. From personal experience I have found any business which puts people first, wins. Typically the other 5P's which should influence how you find the strategy that works for you should be linked to:

1. Purpose
2. Planet
3. People
4. Profit
5. and finally Product

Now, when it comes to the data you will be gaining from campaigns, track the performance of your marketing efforts and utilize it to improve your messaging and communication styles mainly. Analyze key metrics like website traffic, conversion rates, and social media engagement. Use these insights to refine your plans so you can reach your strategic goals and objectives, and optimize your marketing efforts for continuous improvement.

Beyond the Basics: Modern Marketing Trends for SMEs:

• Content Marketing: Create Educational, Engaging, and Entertaining content that attracts your target audience and establishes your brand as a thought leader. ONCE again - this is NOT just for your business, but also for your personal brands too. How does this link to your larger marketing strategy? It is a chance for you to showcase the communication style you wish your brand to have from here on.
• Social Media Marketing: Engage with your audience and build brand loyalty through social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. How can you build loyalty? We can dive into that in another newsletter. But here, your main focus would be building trust. Show people that you do what you say and that you know what you're talking about. This could be thanks to your experience or your knowledge, but you must find a way to stand out.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimize your website content to rank higher in search engine results pages, driving organic traffic to your website. Why is this so important? Well let's start with what SEO is. Search engines basically crawl through your website reading and denoting every single keyword they can find. The more legible and interesting the website seems to be, the more it will be recommended. Multiple newsletters can be written on this topic but certainly you can't expect this to show results in a single week. Expect to put in at least 6-months worth of work before improvements can be seen.

Taking Action:

• Start from Afar: What is your company's vision? What is the reason your company exists and what does it want to achieve in its lifetime? Let's begin there and work backwards - how do you want people to think of you? When your products are mentioned, what emotion must they evoke in your customers and the general public?
• Develop a Marketing Plan: ONLY once your marketing strategy is clear, is it time to go and create that SMART Plan of yours. Break down the overall goal into smaller, manageable tasks and you will succeed.
• Allocate Resources: Alongside the planning element, comes the need to dedicate the necessary resources, both financial and human, to implement your marketing plan effectively. The Strategy itself must be supported properly from the plans all the way down to the operational day-to-day tasks.
• Track & Adapt: Continuously monitor your progress and adapt your plans and potentially even your overall strategy based on data and market changes and feedback.

Building a winning marketing strategy is a continuous journey. By following these steps, leveraging modern marketing trends, and staying data-driven, you can ensure your business stays ahead of the curve and achieves long-term marketing success. Be certain to also define what exactly success and failure would be in your eyes. Be slightly ambitious in this part - always better to aim for the stars!

Stay tuned for our next newsletter and in the meantime, share your thoughts!

What challenges do you face in developing a marketing strategy for your SME? What marketing tactics have worked best for you? Do you think you have a proper strategy in place or only plans following plans? Let' me know in the comments below!

P.S. Don't forget to follow me on TikTok and Instagram for more marketing insights and inspiration!

• English TikTok
• English Instagram
• Bulgarian TikTok
• Bulgarian Instagram