Before you can define your marketing strategy, you must understand exactly what a marketing strategy is.
Simply put, a marketing strategy is a plan structured around the resources available to you to promote and grow your business, targeted to your defined ideal client.
So now that you have this definition, review the following list to measure the current status of your marketing strategy and consider where it could go by integrating a structured marketing strategy in the future promotion of your business.
The top dozen questions to define your marketing strategy:
1. First of all, what is it about your business that you are passionate about? Reflect back on what motivated you to start your company.
2. What is it that you provide to your target market in ways that differ from your competitors?
3. Just like people, businesses have – or should have – a personality. What is the dominant trait in your business that you want your customers to identify?
4. What does your ideal client look like? This, really should have been identified when you were planning your business. After all, you can’t be everything to everyone, and if you haven’t defined your client by now, your business is probably flailing.
5. You’ve heard about the “elevator speech”. What is yours? Come up with a simple 10-word message that defines, explains and excites prospects about your business.
6. How does your target market become aware of your business? Within this question, you should be able to identify where and how you can best reach your target audience.
7. How do you build trust? People do business with those they like, no, and trust. What are you doing that will build trust to your target market, assuring them that you are the best person to do business with.
8. How is your cash flow? Be realistic. If you aren’t honest with yourself about your cash resources, you can’t be realistic about what you can achieve. If you are in a position that you have assets but require interim assistance was financing projects, what revenue sources are available to help you grow your business?
9. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. By walking a mile in your clients’ shoes, you can define and refine the customer experience. Happy client not only becomes a repeat client, but also becomes a source for referrals by becoming an advocate for your business.
10. Once you have defined where you want to goal, what gaps in resources do you face? None of us are experts at everything. Define what you can do and either assign tasks to someone else in your organization in their area of expertise, or outsource to a professional.
11. Do you require partnerships with others in order to achieve your goals? In some cases, it makes sense to partner with complementary business professionals to keep costs down, share resources, and benefit.
12. Finally, now that you’ve answered all of these questions, what does the result of implementing this strategy look like? If you see any holes in the results, review the list again and refine your strategy further.
Until next time…
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