Create your marketing strategy

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1073900352

Introduction

Developing a marketing strategy is vital for any business. Without one, your efforts to attract customers are likely to be haphazard and inefficient.

The focus of your strategy should be to make sure that your products and services meet customer needs and that you develop long-term and profitable relationships with those customers. To achieve this, you will need to create a flexible strategy that can respond to changes in customer perceptions and demand. It may also help you identify whole new markets that you can successfully target.

The purpose of your marketing strategy should be to identify and then communicate the benefits of what your business offers to your target market.

Once you have created and implemented your strategy, you should monitor its effectiveness and make any adjustments required to maintain its success.

This guide helps you identify which customers to focus on and your key objectives in reaching them. It explains what to include in your marketing strategy and how it can be used as the basis for effective action.

Key elements of a successful marketing strategy

Your existing and potential customers fall into particular groups or segments, characterised by their 'needs'. Identifying these groups and their needs through market research, and then addressing those needs more successfully than your competitors, should be one of the key elements of your marketing strategy. See our guide onmarket research and market reports.

You can then create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the needs of the customers you want to target. For example, if a particular group of customers is looking for quality first and foremost, then any marketing activity aimed at them should draw attention to the high quality of your products or service.

Once you have created your marketing strategy, you must then decide which marketing activity or activities will ensure your target market know about the products or services you offer, and why they meet their needs.

There are many ways to achieve this - such as various forms of advertising, exhibitions, public relations initiatives, internet activity and an effective 'point of sale' strategy if you rely on others to actually sell your products. But try to limit your activities to those methods you think will work best, to avoid spreading your budget too thinly.

Monitoring and evaluating how effective your strategy has been is a key element, yet often overlooked. This control element not only helps you see how your strategy is performing in practice, it can also help inform your future marketing strategy. A simple approach is to ask each new customer how they heard about your business.

Once you have decided on your marketing strategy, draw up a marketing plan that sets out how you intend to execute that strategy and evaluate its success. The plan should be constantly reviewed and, if necessary, updated so you can respond quickly to changes in customer needs and attitudes in your industry and in the broader economic climate. See our guide on how to write a marketing plan

Understanding your strengths and weaknesses

Every business has strengths and weaknesses. Your marketing strategy must take account of how your business' strengths and weaknesses will affect your marketing.

An honest and rigorous SWOT analysis, looking at your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats is a good starting point for your marketing strategy document. Also, conducting some market research on your existing customers at this point will help you to build a more honest picture of your reputation in the marketplace.

Strengths could include:

• personal and flexible customer service
• special features or benefits that your product offers
• specialist knowledge or skills

Weaknesses could include:

• limited financial resources
• lack of an established reputation
• inefficient accounting systems

Opportunities could include:

• increased demand from a particular market sector
• using the internet to reach new markets
• new technologies that allow you to improve product quality

Threats could include:

• the emergence of a new competitor
• more sophisticated, attractive or cheaper versions of your product or service
• new legislation increasing your costs
• a downturn in the economy, reducing overall demand

Find out how to do a SWOT analysis on the bizhelp24 website- Opens in a new window.

Having done your analysis, you can then measure the potential effects each element may have on your marketing strategy.

For example, if new regulations will increase the cost of competing in a market where you're already weak, you might want to look for other opportunities. On the other hand, if you have a good reputation and your key competitor is struggling, the regulations might present the opportunity to push aggressively for new customers.

Developing your marketing strategy

Once you understand your business' internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats, you can develop a strategy that plays to your own strengths and matches them to the emerging opportunities. You can also try to minimise your weaknesses.

The next step is to draw up a detailed marketing plan that sets out the specific actions that will put that strategy into practice. See our guide on how to write a marketing plan.

Questions to ask yourself when developing your strategy

• What changes are taking place in our business environment? Are these opportunities or threats?
• What are our strengths and weaknesses?
• What do I want to achieve? Set clear, realistic objectives.
• What are customers looking for? What are their needs?
• Which customers are the most profitable?
• How will I target the right potential customers? Are there groups that I can target more effectively?
• What's the best way of communicating with them?
• Could I improve my customer service? This can be a low-cost way of gaining a competitive advantage over rivals, keeping customers, boosting sales and building a good reputation.
• Could changing my products or services increase sales and profitability? Most products need to be continuously updated to maintain competitiveness.
• Could extending my product list or service provision meet existing customers' needs more effectively? Remember that selling more to existing customers is generally more cost effective than continually trying to find new ones.
• How will I price my product or service? Although prices need to be competitive, most businesses find that trying to compete on price alone is a poor strategy. What else are my customers interested in? Quality? Reliability? Efficiency? Value for money?
• What is the best way of distributing and selling my products?
• How can I best promote my products? Options might include advertising, direct marketing, exhibiting at trade fairs, PR or marketing on the web.
• How can I tell if my marketing is effective? Check how your customers find out about your business. A small-scale trial can be a good way of testing a marketing strategy without committing to excessive costs.
  
  

  Tips and pitfalls

  Before looking at new markets, think about how you can get the most out of your existing customers - it's usually more economical and quicker than finding new customers.

  Perhaps you could sell more to your existing customers, or look at better ways to retain key customers.

  Focus on the market

  • Analyse the different needs of different groups of customers.
  • Focus on a market niche where you can be the best.
  • Aim to put most of your efforts into the 20 per cent of customers who provide 80 per cent of profits.

  Don't forget the follow-up

  • Approach a third party for feedback about your strategy - they may be able to spot any gaps or weaknesses that you can't see.
  • Put your marketing strategy into effect with a marketing plan that sets out the aims, actions, dates, costs, resources and effective selling programmes.
  • Measure the effectiveness of what you do and be prepared to change things that aren't working.

  Pitfalls to avoid

  • Making assumptions about what customers want.
  • Ignoring the competition.
  • Trying to compete on price alone.
  • Relying on too few customers.
  • Trying to grow too quickly.
  • Becoming complacent about what you offer and failing to innovate.

  
  

  
  

  Here's how I chose the right marketing mix

  Human resources consultancy Wickland Westcott reviewed the marketing strategy for its assessment and development services, and a new focus and a more structured approach have rapidly paid dividends. Co-owner and director of assessment and development, Colin Mercer, describes the process.

  What I did

  Identify strengths and weaknesses

  "The company was doing well, but our approach to marketing was hit-and-miss. We went through the business from top to bottom and pinpointed our strengths and weaknesses. 

  "On the plus side, customer research showed that we had a great reputation for quality service. On the minus side, brand awareness was low and some of our systems weren't working well. We also used published academic research to find out more about our target customers' mindset and why they buy. We used all the information to create a marketing strategy with clear objectives. These included developing our network of partnerships, raising brand awareness, positioning ourselves as strategic thinkers in our market, and getting more business through referrals."

  Work to a plan

  "With clear objectives in mind, writing and implementing a marketing plan was easier. We changed our marketing mix and our approach:

  • Our printed newsletter, our main direct marketing method, was made more customer-focused by including market briefings. Feedback has improved and we've had several approaches from new clients who've received it.
  • Instead of cold calling, we stepped up marketing via our network of partners. We provided them with clear information so that they could promote all our services to their clients. Now, about 20 per cent of what we bill is to partners rather than end users.
  • To establish ourselves as strategic thinkers in our markets we began getting articles published in relevant trade journals. This raised brand awareness and enhanced our reputation. We also use re-prints of the articles as a direct marketing tool. 
  • We also re-designed our website and launched an Interview Guide on CD-Rom to show the flexibility of our services.

  "We now review our marketing strategy and update the plan every six months. As a result of one review, we decided to attend a big trade conference, which worked extremely well for us and generated a lot of new leads."

  Clean up the database

  "Marketing to existing customers is easier and cheaper than starting from scratch with new ones, because existing customers are aware of our quality. However, to market effectively to this group required a better customer database than we had. As a result we decided to update our customer database. It's just as well we did, because as we updated it we found that approximately 40 per cent of the entries contained errors, duplications or were completely irrelevant. If we'd marketed to our original database we'd have wasted a lot of time and money.

  "We now have a proper database management strategy. We nominated one person internally to take responsibility and now it's kept up to date meticulously. We also use bought-in contact databases to help us target new customers."

  What I'd do differently

  Repackage content

  "We were slow to realise that the content we had on our website and in other marketing literature was a gold mine. It can be repackaged in lots of different ways. For example, a case study written for the website can be used as a mail shot, as the basis for a trade magazine article and as a handout for meetings as well. We're much better at it now, and we use all our content, including survey results, across all our marketing channels. However, we could have made use of what we had much sooner."