A MARKETING strategy is the backbone to any business plan. It helps you identify what your goals are and how best to reach them. Between the planning and evaluation phases of the strategic marketing process is a phase known as implementation phase.
If you have a well thought-out, clearly communicated MARKETING strategy, targeted to the right person by making that clever connection, your chances of success improve exponentially.
8 simple and effective marketing strategy are:
1. Identify the target market:
The first step to marketing successfully is to identify the market . This includes who is your potential customer and what will make them decide to buy from you over your competitors. And looking at that from a different perspective, it also includes who is most likely to fail in gaining a share of this market.
2. Target in a way that appeals to their desires:
Someone loves pink balloons, but you don’t want him buying that broccoli, you want him buying those balloons. Why? He doesn’t like them! Aim at what they want, not at what they need! In short, do not let your advertising slogan become their mission statement.
3. Loosely target:
Do not be too picky with whom you sell your products. You might be tempted to focus on a particular demographic, but that is a mistake. By doing so you will miss out on more potential clients; people who may have bought your product in the past, but are not likely to buy it again. Do not make the same mistake as that blonde haired girl’s dad did when he was trying to buy her this new mobile phone. He chose some really bright coloured ones and that did not go down well with his daughter.
4. Establish a clear and compelling identity:
You know what you do. Your customers know what you do. There is no need to keep repeating it over and over again! That is the reason why people leave out the brand name of products in their reviews, or do not use it at all. To be an effective marketer, you need to be clear about your product’s features. If it is the best in its category then make sure everyone understands that. This means knowing your target audience so well that you can answer any question they have about what you offer. That is why it pays to research into your target market.
5. Assign individual personalities and attributes to each of your products:
If you have a long list of products and a poor marketing strategy, the last thing people will think is as though they are being sold by the same company. You need to target your messages at a specific person. If you think of your products as being characters, giving each of them a distinct personality, each product becomes more memorable. People remember personalities and not just the features or benefits of the product.
6. Understand how to make use of:
Your competitors: You do not set out to beat your competitors, but it helps if you can figure out how they are doing things better than you are. Take note of what they are doing well; the kind of advertising they are using, the kind of presentations that work best for their audience and then measure it against yours and see what works best for them, and what does not.
7. Get out there:
It is all very well having a great strategy and doing a lot of research and knowing exactly what you are doing, but if you are not promoting your product, people will not know it exists. Developing an effective marketing strategy is easy as long as you get out there and start talking to people. The Internet is a good starting point for a MARKETING strategy, but it is not enough in itself. You need to get out there and pitch your product to the people you want to sell it to. You need to convince them that they really do need it, and make them feel like they cannot live without it.
8. Learn from your mistakes:
You need to constantly reassess your MARKETING strategy, and revise it if you believe an improvement can be made. In the words of Henry Ford: “It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission”. Whether you like it or not, you will make mistakes while marketing your product. The trick is to learn how to avoid making the same mistake twice and take full advantage of the experience so that next time round, your marketing plan will be even better.
Conclusion:
It is not a bad marketing strategy to have in place even if your business is just starting. Having an effective MARKETING strategy can help you develop the brand that you want your business to be. If your current marketing strategy is not working, you might want to consider these 8 simple and effective marketing strategies.
These things are not definite truths and cannot guarantee success, but they will give you an understanding of what people want from your product and how best to get that message across successfully.
