Do I Need a Formal Marketing Strategy for my Business?
Do I Need a Formal Marketing Strategy for my Business?
Is a marketing strategy overkill for my business? Or is the marketing strategy what's actually going to propel my business forward?
Why have a Marketing Strategy?
A marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan that both helps to inform the overall business strategy and then turns the business priorities into the marketing efforts that will help to propel your business forward. It will provide insight and direction to your business units and will help to align your messaging, positioning and key products and services. It will also show how you can align your business goals to help you clearly articulate who you are and what you do, help your brand get recognized, and generate demand for your products or services that can turn into sales and revenue. While many organizations may consider marketing a cost centre or frivolous spending, mature and forward-thinking organizations realize it is an important driver for the business to achieve their goals.
In order to create the strategy, Marketing needs to work collaboratively across all functions:
Reporting directly to the CEO, marketing will help define and understand the overall key priorities and brand vision.
Working as a close partner and ally to the product or services engineering or management team, marketing partners to connect with customers to help define the pain points of the target audience they are building products and services for and helps define what is important to them. These teams need to work together to understand their pain and how your business solves these pains to clearly articulate the value.
Sales is another close partner in he overall marketing strategy - they talk to customers and prospects every day and have insight into the customer thinking. They understand what objections customers have about your offerings as well as what works and what doesn't. They also need to be working as partners on the key priorities and follow through on the conversations that marketing creates with the right message and focus. This powerful teaming is what turns marketing pipeline into sales revenue.
Customer success is the key unit that provides the most touchpoints with the customer and shapes the customer journey. With this team, the end-to-end customer journey needs to reflect what the company stands for- from how they are onboarded - to renewals - to exiting as a customer and understanding the reasons why.
People and Culture is another collaborative partner, ensuring the message gets across that defines who the company is, shaping employer branding to help recruit new team members and define the culture.
There is no part of a business that is untouched by marketing. A clear marketing strategy will help align across all the functions to ensure everyone is working in lock-step to focus on what matters and that they are articulating the same messages across the business.
The Marketing Strategy Communicates Focus
A marketing strategy is an alignment document that adds clarity as to which business areas the marketing team will be focusing on in terms of time and budget. It should help team members zone in on who the organization is targeting and what the organization is saying to them. It allows cross-functionally for business units to understand where the money will be spent and understand why. It provides clear targets and goals to reach so that all team members are heading in the same direction.
Without a marketing strategy, team members are often unclear about "what marketing is doing". This leads to many of the age-old problems where sales thinks marketing isn't helpful or the CEO believes that marketing is a cost-centre.
In addition, when an organization doesn't have strategy, any tactic looks good. Team members will wonder why their projects are not being funded and often times, the wrong projects are chosen for focus and budget that don't create any return on investment.
This is why having a marketing strategy is so important. It defines what is important to the business and communicates how the marketing team will use that to define market focus, messaging and programs to reach them.
What Should the Marketing Strategy Contain?
A marketing strategy should be tailored to your organization and stem from the overall business priorities, but should also inform the business priorities. This is because the marketing strategy contains important research. The areas of a marketing strategy will include:
Identifying the business goals and objectives and how that translates into marketing goals
Understanding the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), the overall target market, industries, personas, and their needs
Analyzing your competitors and market trends
Creating a unique value proposition that differentiates your business
Key messaging for the company, products and services
Strategies and tactics to promote your products or services
Allocating resources effectively to achieve your marketing goals
Monitoring and evaluating the performance of your marketing efforts
A marketing strategy will help to further define business priorities, align and unify teams and help organizations to better make informed decisions, taking proactive steps to drive the business forward.
Benefits of Having a Formal Marketing Strategy
Having a formal marketing strategy for your business offers several benefits that can contribute to your overall success. Some of these benefits include:
Clear direction: A marketing strategy provides a roadmap for your marketing activities, helping you stay focused and aligned with your business goals.
Targeted approach: By defining your target audience and understanding their needs, you can tailor your marketing messages and tactics to reach them more effectively.
Competitive advantage: A well-developed marketing strategy can help you differentiate your business from competitors and stand out in the market.
Resource optimization: With a marketing strategy in place, you can allocate your resources (time, budget, manpower) more efficiently, ensuring maximum return on investment.
Long-term growth: A formal marketing strategy allows you to plan for the long term, setting achievable goals and implementing strategies that support sustainable business growth.
Overall, having a formal marketing strategy will enhance your marketing efforts, increase your brand visibility, attract more customers, and ultimately drive business growth.
Implementing Your Marketing Strategy
Implementing your marketing strategy involves putting your planned marketing activities into action. Important steps to put a marketing strategy into practice include:
Clearly articulating goals and measuring against them.
Setting clear timelines and deadlines for each marketing activity.
Assigning responsibilities to team members and ensuring everyone understands their roles and tasks.
Monitoring the progress of each marketing activity and making adjustments as needed.
Regularly communicating with your team to ensure alignment and addressing any challenges or roadblocks.
Creating a marketing strategy is not just about creating the document itself, but also how you implement it. Getting buy-in across teams and constantly communicating and articulating progress is key to making a marketing strategy actually come to life. In essence, "marketing" the marketing strategy TO the organization will help them understand, buy-in and align with the marketing team on key priorities.
Measuring the Success of Your Marketing Strategy
Measuring the success of your marketing strategy is essential to determine its effectiveness and make informed decisions for future marketing efforts. Without clear goals and measuring against them, organizations will often not understand what is working or what is not. It creates business units that are pulled in too many directions and often creates overwhelmed and under-producing teams.
Brandspot can help you create your marketing strategy, help you with goals and measurement and communicate across functions. Contact us today to get started.
