Marketing can be a complex and confusing field, with many different approaches and strategies to consider. At Piece of Cake Marketing, we believe that the first step to success is having a clear and effective marketing strategy in place. But what exactly is a marketing strategy, and how can it help your business? Read on to learn more.
5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Marketing Strategy
There are often more questions than answers when it comes to marketing…
- Which social media platform should I be using?
- What should I put on my leaflet?
- How do I reach my target audience?
- What price should I charge?
At Piece of Cake Marketing, we don’t claim to know all the answers but the first question we will ask you is… Do you have a marketing strategy?
You might ask what is a marketing strategy and why you would need one.
What is a Marketing Strategy?
A marketing strategy is defined as ‘a comprehensive plan developed by a business or organisation to achieve specific marketing objectives and goals. It outlines the overall approach and activities that will be carried out to promote products, services, or the brand itself to the target audience.’
But what does that really mean?
If we simplify that down a marketing strategy is just a plan of action that outlines how a business will achieve its goals. An example of this might be wanting to sell 100 of a product in 3 months or adding 25 email addresses to your email list each month.
Overall, a marketing strategy serves as a roadmap that guides the business’s marketing efforts, ensuring a focused and coherent approach to reach, engage, and persuade the target audience.
This is not a definitive list of the reasons why your business needs a marketing strategy but here are the top 5 reasons why we believe you should look to create a marketing strategy for your business.
Reason 1 – To define your target audience
Who is it that we are looking to talk to and engage with? How old are they? What are their hobbies and interests? Where do they live? Which social platforms do they use? How do we reach them offline?
All important questions that need answering.
Reason 2 – To ensure you are talking to your audience
All too often a business will fall into the trap of talking about their products and services. It’s easy to do but doesn’t always get the desired outcome. Your audience wants you to solve their problems, make their life easier or add a sprinkle of joy.
That means you need to understand what is going on in their life, show you understand and offer a solution.
Reason 3 – To create a plan with objectives and measurements
Creating a marketing strategy and documenting it allows you to track progress, allocate responsibilities and create goals. Those goals could be anything from growing your email database to generating revenue.
Make sure they’re realistic and that you have a deadline against them. Writing your goals into your strategy is likely to have a more positive effect on your outcome.
Reason 4 – To understand your Competition
Who are you competing with? Take some time to study the competition. What can you learn from them? What makes you different and why should your audience buy from you? Is there a gap in the market that your product or service will fill?
Competition may also one day turn into collaboration, you never know.
Reason 5 – To ensure you stay consistent
This is often the hardest part for a business owner. Your strapline, imagery and messaging should always feel like your brand. However many businesses struggle with staying consistent. It can feel relentless and it can also be a challenge when you’re trying to cover many of the aspects of running a business.
What is included in a Marketing Strategy?
The key elements of a marketing strategy may include:
- Vision & Mission of your business – your business’s vision and mission form the foundations of your marketing. This mission and vision should flow through your marketing.
- Business Goals – what are your aiming for? What does success look like?
- The Market – assessing the market landscape, including industry trends and customer behaviour.
- Competition – who else is in the market and what are they offering?
- Target Audience identification – defining the outstanding characteristics of your customer, this could be broken down by product.
- Positioning and differentiation – identifying your unique selling proposition.
- Marketing objectives – establishing clear and measurable goals that align with your business goals.
- Marketing Activity – what are you going to do? And by when?
What does a marketing strategy session look like with Piece of Cake Marketing?
Our sessions include a 3-hour face-to-face workshop (or via Zoom) to plan and discuss ideas for marketing all aspects of your business. The workshop will look at all marketing mediums that can be used for your business and audience.
Following the meeting, we will create a marketing plan that can be used and edited within the business to ensure you are kept on track and always have your goals at the forefront of your marketing activities.
Let’s not forget the most important thing, our in-person strategy sessions always include cake!
And we don’t just leave it there, we are happy to work with businesses to put their marketing plans into action. You could also choose to work through the plan yourself and we are available to do a follow-up meeting 3-6 months after your session to keep you on track.
Head to our price list page for more information.