Failing Miserably at Strategic Marketing – How to Get Back on Track and Start Meeting Your Goals
Strategic marketing can often feel like a buzz word, like obscure terminology that isn’t really defining your marketing plan. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth, as strategic marketing is used by companies of all sizes and in all industries to garner incredible results in growing their customer base, and thereby their revenues. This line of marketing takes a detailed and direct approach by creating a plan that addresses a specific goal.
If you’ve dabbled your feet in strategic marketing in the past and had little to no success, it could just be that you’re going about it the wrong way. With a few simple adjustments and tips, you too could be a strategic marketing pro.
You Need to Fully Understand Who Your Audience Is
One of the biggest mistakes that companies make in creating a strategic marketing plan is to not be specific in who their target audience is. If you don’t know exactly who you are trying to reach, how can you possibly affect them? Determining your target audience isn’t something you want to take lightly, instead you want to give it a lot of thought. You need to ask who your target customer is, and what it is they want/need.
MediaBeacon has published an interesting article on how to improve your strategic Marketing Planning Process and cites identifying your target audience as the number one step. It is what will determine all the other decisions and steps you will make.
What Do You Hope to Achieve?
You also need to be specific in what your goal is. What do you hope to achieve with this strategic marketing plan? There also needs to be a way to track your progress along the way so you can then measure how successful your efforts are. If you find some areas aren’t performing as well as you hoped, then you can make adjustments and see how that affects the tracking.
Put Your Plan Down on Paper
Once you start to formulate your plan, having it circulate in your head isn’t going to help anyone, instead you need to put it down on paper. Outline all the steps that you will take, jot down goals and milestones along the way, and what specific marketing techniques you will use both online and offline. This plan is the blueprint of your efforts and can help keep you on track by referring to it on a regular basis.
Your plan should also include a timeline to ensure that things get done in a reasonable amount of time.
Set a Budget
Lastly, you want to also set a budget for your strategic marketing plan, as without a set number it can be very easy to over-spend.
Start to See Results
By taking these tips into consideration and approaching your strategic marketing plan in a more defined manner, it shouldn’t be long before you start to see positive results rolling in. Remember to also stay consistent with these tips and stick to the plan.