So we’re nearly half way through the last quarter of the year and so now should be the time you start putting together a marketing strategy for next year. Marketing strategies may differ depending on the unique situation of the individual business, but its simply an overlying document to your marketing plan that enables you to write a schedule that you can break down into monthly (or weekly) activities.
So, how do you go about creating a strategy?
A marketing strategy defines your sales objectives and describes the way you’re going to satisfy them. Quite often, especially in small business it will be a growth strategy. Your strategy doesn’t have to be complicated, it can be a very simple document. So you’ll be needing to think about:
What product or service creates the most profit?
Once you have identified this, you’ll then need to consider what you need to do to grow this area of your business firstly for existing clients, and then for prospects (are they in a particulat market sector, or geographic area?)
Are there any new products or services you can add to your portfolio?
If the answer to this is yes, you’ll then need to decide how you can find new clients for the product, and also introduce it to your client base.
So this simple marketing strategy which delivers against your business goal of increased turnover and profit would be easily achieved by
- Promoting repeat business to existing clients for existing products
- Reach new customers with your existing product set
- Launch new products and sell to existing and new clients
Then you overlay this with your unique selling points, your mission statements and brand sentiment, so you need to think about how you can position your company over and above your competitors. Really think about the customers that you serve, what problem you are solving and how you do that differently to everyone else.
and finally you need to think about the marketing mix (which feeds into the plan and schedule of work)
So you know the products you want to promote, you know the price (and yes you can put them up!) you know who you are wanting to send the marketing messages to, so you now need to know what marketing tools to use to hit the nail on the head is it
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Adverts, coupons or flyers
- Internet Marketing
Once you’ve decided on the tool its time to implement and get yourself a marketing calendar together with all the activities you will undertake for the year.
So you see, it really doesn’t have to be scary…but if you’re still worried that something might ‘trick’ you, call JCK Marketing to put together your marketing strategy, it will be our treat!