What is strategic marketing?
Marketing is thrown at consumers and business owners so often nowadays, it can start to feel tasteless. That’s because, in a lot of cases, it is. So much advertising and marketing promotions are created with little to no thought behind it. We know that digital marketing itself isn’t always successful, especially if there’s no strategy behind it!
That’s where strategic digital marketing comes in. It’s the guiding North Star of effective promotion for your business, leading the way toward your revenue goals and helping you adjust as you go with clear benchmarks and metrics. Without a clear strategy, your marketing efforts risk becoming disjointed, ineffective, and a potential hole in your pocket for your revenue.
But stay put – we’ll look at why strategy plays a critical role in the success of your marketing campaigns, what happens when you embark on marketing without a strategy, and how you can develop a tailored strategy for your unique needs and goals as a business.
Why Strategy is Important in Marketing
Put simply, strategy is about making informed and data-driven choices. It involves understanding your market audience, identifying who you are talking to, pinpointing their need/want and determining the best way to engage with them. A well-defined strategy considers all viable digital marketing channels, ensuring they work in tandem with each other to reach your audience at different points and ultimately create conversions. This cohesion comes from a put together strategy that amplifies the effect of your marketing, making every pound and hour spent count toward your goals.
But, strategic marketing goes beyond just promotion. We’ve said it before – but it’s about creating a narrative or story that resonates with your audience, differentiating yourself from your competitors, and building long-term relationships with your customers. It leverages market research, competitive analysis, and consumer behaviour to inform decisions. This affects every aspect of marketing, from product design to pricing, promotion, and communication.
What Happens When You Market Without a North Star (strategy)
Venturing into any sort of marketing without any strategy is like setting sail without a map or compass. Pointless! Without clear intention and direction, there are risks.
- Wasting Resources: Time, money, and effort may be wasted on efforts that don’t produce the results you’re looking for.
- Diluting Your Brand Message: Inconsistent messages or content that conflicts with your brand can confuse customers and weaken your brand identity.
- Missing Opportunities: Without a strategic focus, you may miss out on opportunities to connect with potential customers or respond effectively to market changes.
- Reactivity Rather than Proactivity: Instead of preparing for changes and leading with innovation, you may find yourself reacting to competitors and market trends in a disjointed approach.
- Lack of Growth: Without strategies and growth metrics, you may not be able to spot areas for growth or improvement.
How Marketing with Strategy Enhances Marketing Tactics
A strategic approach enhances your campaigns by providing a framework that guides decision-making. It ensures that all decisions and tactics are aligned with your overall objectives, target audience needs, and brand values. This helps with multiple factors.
- Maximising ROI: The basic goal of any marketing is to make more money in the long run than you spent on marketing in the first place. Strategy helps you do this and measure results.
- Enhancing Customer Engagement: Target communication that speaks directly to your audience drives conversions and committed brand followers.
- Building Brand Strength: Consistent, strategic marketing helps you build a strong and recognizable brand over time.
How to build a Marketing Strategy
Developing a marketing strategy that suits your business needs involves several key steps.
Define Your Goals
Everyone wants to make money, that’s why we invest in marketing. Be specific about exactly what you want to achieve and define smaller goals to help track your progress. Instead of deciding to increase your sales, set a goal to increase your sales by 15% over Q2. Set smaller goals that contribute to your main goal, like getting a 7% conversion rate on your ads or gaining 2,000 new Instagram followers.
Specific goals that contain smaller, periodic goals help you spot shortcomings early, adjust, and measure your progress as you go.
Understand Your Market and Audience
You can make a lot of marketing decisions based on feelings and prior knowledge, but there is no substitute for in-depth, up-to-date research on your market and audience. Figure out where your customers are and how you can reach them. Look at trends in the market and determine how you should conform and how you can set yourself apart.
For example, you might likely benefit more from a good Google Business Profile and PPC campaign than a social media presence. Look into the habits and interests of your target market and use that to decide where you will reach them.
Identify Your Unique Value Proposition
Everyone is the best. No brand or business is going to go out there and say they’re a mediocre choice compared to their services, and we all want to be number 1. Consumers are not always inclined to choose a brand just because they say they’re the best.
You can still tell people that you’re the best choice, but tell them why first. Get specific and tell people why you’re number 1. You have to give them something of value for them to choose you first.
Create Content, Adhere to Your Brand
When it’s time to start designing, creating, and writing your marketing material, stay true to your brand. Colours, fonts, language, imagery, and more all play a part in upholding your brand image. It can be tempting to try new colours or switch up the way your brand sounds through copywriting, but be careful with this! When in doubt, adhere to your brand standards.
We say this because trustworthy brands are consistent in every form of marketing they create. Coca-Cola would never release an ad using purple cans on a lime green background, even if it “makes it pop.” Your brand standards should guide every marketing decision you make to maintain consistency.
Run Your Campaign, Measure Your Results
Repeat it with me – campaigns are worthless without DATA. Using the goals and metrics you already determined, keep track of your campaigns and their performance as you go. Never “set it and forget it.” Check-in with your marketing projects often, look for things that may not be working or could use adjustments, and adapt.
If your social media posts aren’t garnering attention or engagement a few weeks into your social media marketing campaign, take a look at your material and assess what can be improved. Maybe you notice that posts featuring employees and faces perform better than graphics. Maybe you have more success with video content rather than images.
You can apply this to nearly any marketing tactic. Check-in, A/B test, and adapt accordingly. You got this.
Marketing Strategy – It’s worth it
If you’re marketing without a strategy, you’re doing it wrong. Instead of throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks, use these tips above to go into your next marketing campaign with a solid strategy and plan so that you can succeed. And if all of these tips seem overwhelming or confusing, we’ve got good news.
We’re KW Marketing, a full-service digital marketing agency that works with clients in a variety of industries nationwide. If you’re interested in strategic marketing but don’t know where to start, let us help you. Get in touch with us and tell us a little bit about what you’re looking for, or give us a call to learn more about us and how we can help you to GET RESULTS.