What are you doing to attract your ideal customers?
Every single day, people are consuming content at a faster rate than ever before. With the rise of social media and continual advances in technology, it’s more important than ever to have a digital marketing strategy.
It doesn’t matter if you’re one of the big dogs like Apple or Amazon, or sell handmade products online and at local events, every business needs a good marketing strategy to achieve success.
But how do you build a strategy that is right for you? Getting to know who your customers are, what they stand for, and how they buy from and interact with your brand are all key bases for a strong marketing strategy.
Why does your business need a marketing strategy?
A solid marketing strategy ensures all your activities are considered and scheduled in advance to help you reach and attract more of your ideal customers and achieve your growth objectives.
A strategy will help you better understand your target market, your competition and will also help you to continue growing and getting more customers through the door.
Six steps to creating a strong marketing strategy
Start with a goal
With most things in life, there’s always an end goal. When you’re baking, the goal is to make a cake. When you’re travelling, the goal is to get to your destination. The same mindset should be applied to your marketing strategy – what do you want to achieve at the end?
Setting a clear business goal (or goals) is a great base for your marketing strategy. It will help you find the best channels to market on, and will keep you on the right path.
Research, research, research
Your target market, competitors, strengths and weaknesses are all areas you need to look at and research when creating a strong marketing strategy.
Finding your target audience helps you set out and plan what marketing activity will work best for you.
Carrying out competitor research means you can work out dos and don’ts for your own business.
Finding your businesses strengths and weaknesses means you can identify areas where you need additional support, like expertise from a marketing agency.
Look at your analytics
Analytics are crucial to a successful marketing strategy. Looking at the traffic to your website, how users interact on each page of your website and how they engage with your brand on social media means you can understand the customer journey and user experience and tailor your marketing plan accordingly.
Understand your audience
Your customers should be at the forefront of everything you do when creating a marketing strategy.
Understanding how they interact with your business, what products or services are most popular, and what demographics you sell to the most, is vital. It’s all about really getting to know who your customers are, and focusing your efforts on attracting them, rather than trying to hit the mass market with marketing that isn’t going to resonate with most of them.
Set a budget
As a business, you will be naturally mindful of what money you’re spending and where it’s going. Setting a budget for your marketing helps keep everything in line and means you have more thought and strategy behind each decision you make.
Too many businesses fall into the trap of throwing money at every marketing avenue they can in the hope that something will stick, and more often than not, that simply leads to wasted budget and poor results.
Research marketing techniques
Nowadays there are so many different marketing techniques and channels to choose from. Social media marketing, email marketing, PPC, SEO and content marketing will all help you to grow your business, reach more potential customers and stay engaged with existing customers.
If you want your marketing to be successful, plan what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Most importantly, review the results so you know if your time and budget have been well spent, and use these findings to steer your future marketing activity."
How can QBD help create a marketing strategy
At QBD, we have a deep understanding of marketing and how a strong strategy is key to achieving your business goals.
With a Where. Where. What. Review (W3R), our team of specialists will take the time to understand your objectives, review your current marketing and online presence, and then provide advice and suggestions on how it can be improved, so it supports your business plan.
Give us a call today to learn more about how we can help.