“IF YOU DON’T HAVE A BIG FAT MARKETING STRATEGY, YOU DO IT WRONG!”

In today’s world, nothing is constant but change and there are more extremities that happened during the past few years than we could have ever imagined. It means that we are all affected somehow without exception. Big enterprises, Small Business Owners, Entrepreneurs, Solopreneurs have to adjust their overall business operations, maybe they have to partially or completely change the scope of their business and this way they must revisit their marketing activities too.

Marketing aims not only to generate leads or connect you with potential customers. Successful marketing connects you with the right people and works on finding the so-called: “qualified leads” who are interested in your product/service and more importantly are warmed up to buy.

That’s what you have to work on throughout your marketing activities in order to finally make them buy and more importantly retain them in the long run.

There are several different Marketing Strategies available on the market and obviously not each of them is appropriate for you or will provide you with the desired benefits. So, the first principle you have to acknowledge is that different businesses require different methods depending on the location, your product, the customers, the market maturity, and further various factors.

But what does your “Big Fat Marketing Strategy” mean?

“The focal point of a comprehensive and grounded Marketing Strategy is the company’s Value Proposition which defines the mission and what the company stands for, the operation model and how it solves problems and serves its clients or the wider society.” (Strategyscope)

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IS NOT EQUAL TO YOUR OVERALL MARKETING STRATEGY!

When you scroll over the internet you will notice that experts and specialists working in the different fields of marketing and branding like to use the expression: “marketing strategy” quite often. When they approach you and talk about how they can serve you, they right immediately start to speak about some Social Media tactics or how you can bring out the best from your Instagram or TikTok account. While other cases, copywriters and communication experts try to enlighten you about what kind of marketing strategy should you apply.

Well, all these strategic areas are important and have their own functions as key spare parts within the marketing machine, but none of them equals your overall MARKETING STRATEGY!

If you don’t have the basic Marketing Strategy please be cautious not to be misguided! Don’t let yourself make the plunge into different trendy and mainstream Social Media or Advertising tactics and choose wisely who can help you with setting up your extended marketing framework.

“Your Marketing Strategy is a complex framework about HOW will you accomplish your marketing objectives and goals. It is a strategic map that you will use not only for how you do your marketing today but looking ahead to the closer and the longer future.”

WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR DEFINING YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY?

?? RELEVANT INFORMATION AND EXPERTISE – As described in the above section, not every expert or specialist in different fields of marketing can help you with your broader Marketing Strategy because it requires a more complex understanding of the 4 key objectives: the PROFITABILITY OBJECTIVE, the MARKET SHARE OBJECTIVE, the PROMOTIONAL OBJECTIVE and the GROWTH OBJECTIVE.

?Furthermore, an in-depth analysis of

• the scope of your business and your business model,
• the market and its maturity,
• the industry/niche,
• the viability of your product/service,
• the customer segments,
• the buying cycle,
• your operations processes and accessible resources,
• your short, mid and long-term growth opportunities, etc.?

You have to be clear that you most probably won’t get all these things from an Influencer Marketing Specialist, or a Content Creator. Unfortunately, there are way too many business owners out there who burn their money by advertising in an unthoughtful way, because someone said so and they never see the expected results. This is one of the reasons they often question the ROI (Return of Investment) of marketing in general.

If you want real results and you can’t cope with it by yourself, you’d better set the basic foundations by working with a Marketing Strategist.

?? THE APPROPRIATE MARKETING TECHNIQUES – The next important thing is that you have to define which marketing techniques serve your business goals the best. ???

• B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing, meaning: that you marketing your products/services to other businesses or organizations,
• B2C (Business-to-Consumer) marketing strategies, meaning: that your main target audiences are direct consumers,
• both B2B and B2C, meaning that you serve both individuals and business clients,
• or you might apply the B2B2C (Business-to-Business-to-Consumer) model where you include the eCommerce for direct consumers. This way you can enhance your marketing potential through collaborating with a service provider who is an online merchant/retailer/sales expert and e.g. owns a marketplace.

?? UNDERSTANDING THE MARKETING TRENDS – For identifying your Marketing Strategy first you have to understand what are the current global trends in Marketing, specifically in Digital Marketing as being present in the digital space is not an option anymore, but it’s a must for every business, service providers, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and brands in general!

Be aware of the following aspects:

·???????Everything that big brands do is not necessarily applicable to SMBs, and they should not follow the current or most popular trends dictated by the big players.

·???????Simply copying and pasting what your competitors do is again not necessarily the best choice. Maybe in reality they have no idea what they are doing…?

·???????You also need to observe where your target audience spends most of their time in the digital sphere, what channels they use, and above all, where they look for information and solutions to their problems, for which your products or services are the best fit.

?? MARKETING STRATEGY vs MARKETING PLAN vs MARKETING TACTICS

There's too much confusion out there as some people don’t understand the difference between the Marketing Strategy, the Marketing Plan and what Marketing Tactics mean?

1??????MARKETING STRATEGY – Think about your “Big, Fat Marketing Strategy” as an overall framework or an umbrella around all the other elements. As described above, it covers a long-term time period and includes many specific and key strategies such as:

• Digital Marketing Strategy,
• Advertising Strategy,
• Email Marketing Strategy,
• Content Marketing Strategy,
• SEO strategy, etc.

2????MARKETING PLAN – This is an operational and a smaller part of the overall Marketing Strategy that defines the individual marketing activities you will carry out with the relevant objectives and timelines. Again, you can and should define some smaller marketing plans regarding your specific strategies – e.g. how does your Content Plan look like with all the milestones, deadlines, the content calendar, etc.

3????MARKETING TACTICS – are a range of specific activities you use for executing your strategy. If we look at e.g. your Digital Marketing Strategy, there are a lot of tactics you may apply, more importantly, you can break down these tactics into smaller tactical steps to enhance your final results. – e.g. you involve specialist writers to write about your software in an easily digestible way for your clients while applying the best SEO tactics to enhance the search results of each piece of your content.

Conclusion:

Since the global pandemic hit the world hard one of the biggest business and marketing challenges is CUSTOMER RETENTION. Taking into consideration the extended global economic crisis, the significantly growing inflation rates and the recession forecasted in several markets make companies, especially SMBs and entrepreneurs who work with small teams and limited resources face growing challenges on how to keep their clients in the loop.

That’s why having a customised and more importantly, rechargeable Marketing Strategy 2.0 in place is vital for every business!

Editor’s Note: Marketing Strategy is a huge subject with several various verticals and aspects. Strategyscope will further continue to discuss this subject but doesn’t intend to replace Wikipedia or other high-quality professional marketing resources. Rather give you guidance, and share best practices based on real-life experiences and client cases while keeping you up to date.        

??If you want to broaden your knowledge about how to craft your Marketing, Branding and Content Strategy, stay tuned because more details will be described in the upcoming issues of the STRATEGYSCOPE newsletter.

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STRATEGYSCOPE is the Marketing, Branding & Content Strategy Compass for your business boost. Each week the newsletter covers various topics within these 3 key areas to guide SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) Entrepreneurs, and Solopreneurs to fine-tune their strategies and utilize the potential of Marketing for their sustainable growth.

?? Got a question or Want to Work with Me? Shoot it over in the comments or DM to me @Ildiko Bujaki