Every entrepreneur, regardless of whether he is just starting his own business or has been working on the market for many years, wants his company to develop dynamically and, of course, bring in a lot of income. However, success does not come from nothing, but from the right measures that are the result of your marketing strategy. Is it really that important and is it worth your time? Read on to find out the answer.
Marketing strategy – what is it?
Marketing strategy is the main document on which all business-related activities should be based. This is a kind of key to the functioning and understanding of your own company, since it contains all the information necessary for effective marketing activities.
A marketing strategy is comparable to a recipe: “There are dishes that you always cook correctly if you have the feeling. You don’t need to have a super carbonara recipe if you’ve been to Italy and done it 100 times. The problem arises when one has to prepare Neapolitan pizza dough, not for a pizzeria, but for home use for the first time. Without a prescription, you fail because proportions, a certain amount of time, the environment, etc. are important. Your marketing strategy is your recipe for a very complex dish that is easy to mess up. Without a plan, you will make many mistakes, attempts, waste of time, resources.”
Marketing strategy – structure
A marketing strategy usually consists of two parts – the first deals with the brand strategy and the second deals with the brand’s communication strategy. One with the other must be united into a whole, since their form must be the result of many hours of analysis and reflection on their own company. That’s why strategy development is an ideal opportunity to take a critical look at your own business and think about how customers might perceive it and what benefits it can bring eventually. What should be included in the strategy? Gather and organize all aspects that are key to running a business. The strategy should include, in particular, such elements as:
- Key information about your company,
- strengths and weaknesses of the company,
- description of target groups and marketing persons,
- UDP / USP, that is, what distinguishes a brand in the market from competitors,
- marketing goals,
- visual identification / branding of the brand,
- action plan for individual channels of communication with customers and the form they will take.
Now think about how to combine all these activities without a top-down plan? Exactly – in practice, chaos will come out of this, and you will waste time on work that will not bring you any benefit. Therefore, if you do not have a strategy, effectively achieving your business goals is just an unfulfilled dream. You may consider actions based on the feel of a jump to be effective, but until you look around the environment and get all the pieces of the puzzle together, how will you know if you can act more effectively?
Why is a marketing strategy so important?
You know your goals better
When you go on a trip, you plan the best possible route and prepare your vehicles to get to your destination. You also want to make the most of your time, so research the places you would like to visit to get the most out of it. Why don’t you do this if you run your own business? You don’t even need to use all of MIX’s marketing in the 7P sense – the marketing strategy simply points out the direction of some action that should lead you to your goal.
You know how to communicate with clients
It is also worth knowing that when creating a marketing strategy, such key brand elements as USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and UVP (Unique Value Proposition) are clarified, which are the real difference between your company and competitors. Thanks to their definition, we will be able to get to know our target group better and prepare an adequate form of communication. If, based on these findings, we create a cohesive and aesthetic visual identity and combine it with an interesting linguistic message, we will definitely gain an advantage in the market.
You should know that the strategy created not for several months, but for several years (according to current trends, this is about 3-5 years, but, of course, it needs to be thoroughly checked and updated). The brand must maintain a permanent image, but in a few years the company itself may grow, or the workforce may be replaced. Therefore, a common strategic document that defines the big picture improves the effective management of company resources in the long term and ensures consistency at all touchpoints, regardless of changes in the team and the nature of individual employees.
Hopefully, by now you know that your marketing strategy is the absolute foundation for starting your own business. Thanks to this, you get closer to your goals every day and make sure that marketing can really be effective. If you need help creating your own strategy, please contact us, and we will prepare it for you.
