Think of a market appearance as a journey. To achieve it, you need a marketing plan. In short, it includes the goal you want to achieve with marketing and the funds you invest in the marketing budget. The ways in which you will make that journey can be different. Just as there are several ways to get from point A to point B on a map, there are several ways to accomplish your marketing plan within your budget. Choosing that path is, in a way, choosing a marketing strategy. In the text below, we’ll discuss seven things you should consider on your marketing journey if you want your idea to be heard by the world.
Define The User
Create so-called “buyer personas,” which are actually avatars of different types of people who could be users of your services or products. Let’s say, for financial services, you may be thinking in the direction of a middle-aged person who has his own business. Well, you can create three such personas:
– one who has just started the business and is not yet familiar with how your services would be useful to them;
– one who has been working for some time, knows about your services but does not use them;
– one who has used similar services at another location and understands what they are about.
When creating a marketing strategy, always keep in mind which of these three people you are addressing.
Choose Your Marketing Channels
Will you be advertising through social networks, television, newspapers, or something else? You choose it based on your buyer persona, that is, the profile of your customers, and thinking about which way you will reach them more easily, that is, which way they also use. When you choose a channel, you choose and plan your performance. One idea for the younger generation could be launching a podcast, as people have no issue with listening to hours-long discussions if the topic is interesting enough. If you want to perform on social networks, then analyze: which social network is your audience on? At what time is it most active? Will you post video content, and images, or combine approaches? How will you combine it, and how frequently will you post on social media? What is the goal? How many followers do you have, and how many do you want to reach in a certain time frame?
Branding
Define your brand – what it looks like, i.e., what is its visual identity, what values and goals does it promote, how does it sell, what is the “voice” of your brand (will it be serious and professional or maybe funny and friendly)? Of course, it all depends on what you do. A company that provides some financial services, for example, will not approach branding in the same way that a company that provides fast food delivery will. The first should show seriousness and certainty to create trust. The latter can go for a more relaxed and humorous approach.
Determine The Budget For Marketing
Do not underestimate its importance – marketing is a very important link in business, and you should allocate enough money for it. A lot of successful businesses pump huge amounts of money into marketing, as that’s the only way their product (no matter how good it might be) can reach their desired customers.
Types Of Marketing Strategies
The simplest thing would be if there were one universal marketing tactic: learn and repeat. However, this is not the case, and marketing is a subject of study and science in and of itself.
Traditional Marketing Strategy
This would refer to all those strategies that existed in marketing before the Internet era. These include advertisements on various media (radio, TV, newspapers), the printing and distribution of promotional flyers, sticking posters, and direct marketing (direct calls, 1-on-1 conversations, sending letters).
Non-traditional guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing is a set of procedures and activities that deviate from the pattern, draw attention to themselves, and cause special interest because they are interesting, funny, and shocking—but as such, they remain remembered and retold.
Content marketing strategy
This is a strategy especially suitable for digital marketing. Content marketing is based on the creation of content that would potentially be interesting to a certain target group.
Think About Social Networks
It’s no secret that a huge number of people use social networks to connect with people, but also with certain brands. Social media advertising is a great strategy because the ROI (return on investment) is generally good.
This strategy is most often the aforementioned content marketing adapted to social networks. It means creating content for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Youtube…
It does not mean that you should be present on all social networks because not all of them are equally effective for all areas of business. For example, you will have a hard time advertising ice cream on LinkedIn because it is more of a business network and perhaps more useful for a B2B approach. On the other hand, a Facebook marketing strategy can yield great results.
SEO
SEO optimization is a series of actions aimed at making your site appear first on Google for some specific searches. This is a great tactic because Internet users generally only click on the results on the first page of Google, and if you are not there – you don’t exist.
Plus, they’re typing in the exact keywords they’re interested in and are kind of already half-warmed up to what you have to offer. For example, if someone types “cell phone case,” they already know that such a thing exists – you don’t need to introduce the product to them and create a need for it.
With these things in mind, your marketing will help you expand your business and speak to the world. Thankfully, the modern age of digitalization has made it possible to reach a wider audience in no time if the needed strategies are implemented.
