7 Reasons Why Marketing Strategy Is Important for Every Business

A good marketing strategy is essential for every business, especially for small businesses with limited resources. If you don’t have a clear idea of where you want to go, then you won’t accomplish your goals. With a marketing strategy that is based on market research, you can set realistic, achievable goals. Focusing on your greatest opportunities to gain more customers and increase sales can also give you a competitive advantage. Let’s look at some other reasons why a marketing strategy is important for your business. But first…

What Is A Marketing Strategy?

A marketing strategy is a company’s game plan for achieving sales and marketing goals. It is your blueprint for how you will reach your target audience and turn them into loyal customers. The main purpose of marketing strategy is to create awareness of your brand, build customer loyalty, and increase sales.

A marketing strategy should be developed in conjunction with the overall marketing plan. It should include all activities necessary to achieve your objectives. These may include:

• Developing new products or services
• Promoting existing products or services
• Creating new markets
• Increasing market share within current markets
• Reducing market share within current markets.

The following are three types of strategies used in marketing. They are:

1. Product-oriented strategy
2. Price-oriented strategy
3. Promotion-oriented strategy.

Product-Oriented Strategy

This type of strategy focuses on developing new products and services. You need to decide what kind of product or service you want to offer. Then develop it. Next, determine who your target audience is and how best to reach them. Finally, choose which channels (e.g., direct mail, radio, print media) to use to promote your product or service.

Price-Oriented Strategy

This type of strategy focuses on price. You must decide what prices you are willing to charge for your product or service. Then you must find out how much profit you can make at each price point. Finally, you must decide whether to sell directly to consumers or through wholesalers or retailers.

Promotion-Oriented Strategy

This type of strategy involves promoting your product or service. You must decide what promotional methods you will use to get people to know about your product or service. For example, you could advertise on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, etc.

Why Marketing Strategy is Important

Marketing strategy is critical because it helps you focus your efforts on the most effective ways to reach your target audience. Without a well-developed marketing strategy, you may spend too much time and money on ineffective tactics. In addition, without a marketing strategy, you may not take full advantage of all available marketing tools.

In addition, a marketing strategy helps you clearly define your target audience – – the consumers who are most likely to need your products and services. Without a clear understanding of your target audience, you cannot design an appropriate marketing campaign.

Consumers buy products and services that meet their needs. And businesses that successfully demonstrate the benefits of their products and services stand out from the competition. So a key step in developing your marketing strategy is determining:

• Who will benefit from your products and services
• How your products and services benefit them
• What makes those benefits believable

A good marketing strategy also helps you communicate your value in a consistent way. Consistent communication in marketing helps build consumer confidence in your brand and ensures that your business is accurately represented.

Your marketing strategy should also help you avoid making costly mistakes. For example, if you do not know how to measure results, you may waste valuable resources trying to prove something that does not work.

Finally, a well-designed marketing strategy will allow you to track progress toward your business goals. This way you can see where you stand relative to other companies in your industry, identify which activities provide the best return on your investment and should be continued, as well as the activities you should discontinue.

How To Create A Marketing Strategy

1. Identify the needs of your target market.

To create an effective marketing strategy, you first need to understand the needs of your target audience. This means knowing their wants, needs, likes, dislikes, habits, attitudes, and beliefs. And marketing research will help you accomplish this. The more information you gather, the better able you will be to communicate with your customers.

2. Define your objectives.

These include the overall purpose of your business and specific short-term and long-term goals. Some great marketing objectives to start with include:

1. Lead generation: Finding potential customers.
2. Building brand awareness: Making consumers aware of your company and its products and services.
3. Education: Educating consumers about your industry and your products and services.
4. Brand loyalty: Turning buyers into loyal, long-term customers.
5. Sales: Convincing consumers to buy from you.

3. Analyze your competition. 

If you want to outperform your competition, you first need to understand them. What strategies are they using? How are they reaching their audiences? Which ones seem to be working? Which ones don’t? What opportunities are they overlooking that you might capitalize on?

4. Design your own marketing strategy.

Once you have identified your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, you can begin designing your own marketing strategy. Your strategy should include:

• An overview of your company’s history and current status.
• A description of your target market.
• A list of the types of messages you want to send to your potential customers.
• A plan describing how you intend to deliver those messages.
• A budget outlining how much money you expect to spend on advertising, promotion, and sales.
• A timeline indicating when you will complete each part of your marketing program.
• The method you will use to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
• A list containing the names of key personnel who will implement your strategy.
• A list identifying any additional support staff needed for implementation.

5. Monitor your results.

The market in which your business operates is fluid. And conditions can change rapidly due to unforeseen circumstances such as: 

• Availability of resources that are needed to manufacture your products and provide your services
• Economic changes that affect consumer spending
• Technology changes that may make it more difficult for your business to compete
• Natural disasters that affect the availability of resources and consumer spending

So simply creating a marketing strategy is not enough! To be successful, you need to monitor your results and make adjustments along the way.  

You want a marketing strategy that ensures that every action you take helps move consumers toward a decision to do business with you by solving their problems. This kind of marketing strategy will enable you to build brand loyalty and long-term customers while giving you a clear plan of action and a concise way to explain your value to others.

Interested in learning more about a marketing strategy for your business?

Schedule a complimentary, no-obligation, 30-minute marketing consultation.