Marketing Strategy

Having a winning marketing strategy is becoming more important than ever before in order to succeed in a competitive business environment.

It is often not the company with the superior product or service that succeeds but the company with the better business strategy. As such,
business strategy forms an integral part of any business plan.

Within a business environment we can define strategy as follows:

A "game plan" or plan of action developed to achieve the goals and objectives of a business in line with its mission statement.

Before we can develop a marketing strategy we need to already have our
mission statement as well as goals and objectives in place. In other words,
we should know what we want and now need to find a way of achieving it.

Why "marketing strategy" and not "sales strategy"? As we explained in the article about Home Based Business Marketing, marketing is a much wider field that selling.

Selling starts with your product or service and ends with your customer buying from you while with marketing you start with your customer and only then work your way back to your product or service.

It is about determining the needs of the market and finding ways of satisfying those needs instead of trying to sell or promote a product or
service to the market for which there may not be a need.

As with most things in life, there is not a single solution to all problems, and by the same token, there is not a standard marketing strategy that can be applied by all entrepreneurs and companies.

Your marketing strategy will very much depend on your type of industry,
budget, financial constraints and SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats).

Guidelines to developing a marketing strategy:

Long-Term Strategy

Every strategy should be divided into long-term, medium-term as well as short-term sub-strategies. Always start with your long-term strategy.

Determine what will give you a competitive advantage over competitors

A competitive advantage is often obtained using one of the following three
well-known generic strategies:

Low-Cost : Your product or service is cheaper than competitors.
Differentiation : Create new or unique products or services.
Focus : Satisfy the needs of a specific market segment whether through low-cost leadership or differentiation.

In addition to the above-mentioned generic strategies you may also want to consider the following additional strategies that may help you to gain a competitive advantage:

Quality : Sell or promote based on high quality, not price.
Niche : Consider a product or service where the market size may be very small but where you can achieve high returns due to very few competitors.

Once you have established your long-term strategy you should develop a
medium-term and short-term strategy that will facilitate the achievement
of your long-term strategy.

Action Plans

In many ways a short-term marketing strategy can be referred to as an action plan. An action plan typically has the following elements:

List short-term actions - From 1 day to max. a couple of months.
Establish clear time frame for completion of tasks.
Prioritize actions in order of importance.
Identity who is responsible for various actions or tasks.
Determine or measure that actions have been completed.

Evaluation and Corrections

A marketing strategy is not cast in stone. It is important to remain flexible
and review the strategy as often as necessary. Evaluate results or the lack thereof and amend or correct the strategy.

Learn as much as possible from both positive and negative results. Even more important, try to understand the reasons behind the failure or the success of your marketing strategy.

It is one thing knowing that something is not working but it is quite another thing understanding why it is not working. By understanding why it is not working it will be much easier to find a solution without wasting lots of time and money.

Continuous Improvement

Any strategy should make provision for continuous improvement. What works today may not work tomorrow. Technology is changing all the time, consumers are becoming more demanding and competitors change.

We simply cannot afford to become complacent.

Continuous improvement in a marketing strategy can include:

Research and Development - Develop new products or services, and / or improve existing products or services.
Cost-Saving Initiatives - Look at ways of reducing costs.
Increase Productivity - Learn to become more efficient.

Although any strategy is normally confidential, it is often clear what the strategies of our competitors are, based on their actions.

Keep an open mind and do not lose track of what your competitors are doing. If something works for them it may just as well work for you. Try to keep up to date with new marketing methods. If it looks promising you can
always include it in your marketing strategy.

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