The importance of marketing strategies for promoting a business
Strategy. This could be the difference between a successful business and a company just getting by. But not only do you need a business strategy, you need a marketing strategy. Yes, promoting your business is essential for growth and success, but creating a business marketing strategy and, even better, a unified marketing strategy should be part of those efforts. Let’s discuss the importance of marketing strategies to promote your business and then we’ll go a step further and talk about a unified marketing strategy to unite your marketing, advertising, sales messaging and customer experience touchpoints.
First steps towards a marketing strategy
As defined by the American Marketing Association, marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
A marketing strategy involves the work of identifying specific goals, highlighting achievable goals for your chosen channels (print, radio, broadcast, digital) and then, using those decided strategies and goals, you evaluate the marketing tactics needed to achieve your goals.
Overwhelmed by all this? We can help.
Why business marketing strategies are essential
So, we’ve got an overview of marketing and marketing strategy. Let’s continue in discussing the importance of marketing and why business marketing strategies are essential to companies, organizations, businesses.
- Marketing will help you reach, connect and engage with your target audience.
- It will make customers aware of your products or services.
- Marketing will help you grow your business.
- And, it will help your company stand out and be heard in your industry.
Now, we don’t want to end the conversation there. Because while you understand the importance of marketing, we don’t want you to market your business without any direction. We want you to market your business with a clear plan. With a strategy.
Think of a marketing strategy as having a road map for your goals and plans. Your business marketing strategy will highlight the path you are taking to achieve your goals, your unique and specific business objectives.
This may take some time because it’s not always easy to ask the difficult questions and tough analysis that come with creating a marketing strategy. On occasion, businesses don’t recognize the importance of a marketing strategy or they don’t desire to put in the extra effort, work and time. Or, more likely, the work becomes too overwhelming.
Business marketing strategies guide companies in just about every decision they make
You’ve made it this far. Don’t stop now. Your business marketing strategy is going to guide you in just about every decision you make.
Let’s use digital marketing strategy as an example. A well-planned digital marketing strategy will help your brand highlight your strengths and how much better you are than your competitors. It will help build an authentic relationship with your audience and potential customers. With a marketing strategy in place, your message will be planned, guided, purposeful and, also, will help prevent a misstep.
If you Google business marketing strategies, you will find plenty of examples. Sometimes acronyms are used to help. For example, the SMART strategy makes you consider the following questions:
- Specific — What do I want to accomplish, why is it important, and what will be required?
- Measurable — How can I measure and track the progress? How will I know when my goal is accomplished?
- Attainable — Based on resources and existing obstacles, are my business goals achievable?
- Relevant — Are the goals worth it? Are they consistent? Considering business needs and the current state of business, is the end goal valuable at this time?
- Timely — Are my goals creating a sense of urgency?When can I expect to make progress toward the end goal? What outcomes are expected immediately versus in the short, intermediate, or long term?
Another term you will see come up when discussing business marketing strategies is the four Ps of marketing. Product, Price, Place, Promotion. All four and their relationship to each other should all be considered when creating a marketing strategy.
But there isn’t one strategy that is the best – it must be customized to your business and your business goals. For your digital marketing strategy, you might start with social media, then move on to video, and then try blogging. Business marketing strategies are very unique to the company and the goals. Not sure where or how to start? We can help.
Create a unified marketing strategy
Ok, are you ready to take this one step further? Do you want to really take your business to the next level? Are you ready to create a unified marketing strategy?
A unified marketing strategy is a marketing method that interacts with clients through all marketing channels, including the latest web and social media platforms. Customers will see consistent messaging about your organization and brand across all channels if you use a unified marketing strategy.
A unified marketing strategy helps business owners like you get a better understanding of the complete marketing picture. It’s not just a website. It is not just running some ads from time to time. A unified marketing strategy connects the advertising messages and expectations to your sales team and customer support. The goal is to help choreograph everything, and build a powerful system that keeps new customers flowing through the business.
This might sound like a lot. Maybe you’re a small or mid-sized business and you don’t have time or resources to take this on. Don’t worry, we can help.
Here’s how we can help
We can create and deliver a unified marketing strategy for you. Our solutions don’t come out of a box ready to plug and play. First, we identify your unique business and marketing challenges by determining your current state versus your desired state by doing a complete business analysis. From there we put together a marketing and sales strategy to get you from point A to your desired point B. Our experience and understanding of what is needed to have a successful business allows us to develop a unified marketing strategy that’s connected to your business, creates growth, and prepares you to better work on the business, rather than in the day-to-day grind.
Here are some of the pieces of a unified marketing strategy:
- Marketing Planning and Strategy
- Digital Marketing
- Traditional and Brand Marketing
- Vendor Reviews and Management
- Tracking and Analysis
- Reporting and Regular Reviews
- Media Evaluations
- Brand Development or Consolidation
- Reputation Management and Monitoring
Too much to cover on your own?
We can help you execute a successful brand with traditional and digital marketing campaigns. We can help with every part of your unified marketing strategy. Our team brings a level of marketing expertise to your business that ensures you will be focusing on the right things, with the right vendor partners, and getting the right results.
In order for your business to compete and thrive, you need to evolve your marketing strategies. An important part of a unified marketing streety is creating a structure that is made up of systems, and setting up the proper measurement tools for those systems.
We’ll guide you down the path to success, helping identify and overcome obstacles, both internal and external, that are blocking your way. We’re committed to reaching the desired destination and delivering what you need to reach your business goals. We have extensive experience in sales and developing growth strategies and will help you build a unified marketing strategy.
Want to learn more about unified marketing strategy? Read Jimmy LaSalle’s book “Unified Marketing Strategy” available through Amazon.
