Before jumping onboard with an exciting new marketing strategy to overhaul your business, it’s worthwhile breaking down your business goals and clearly defining marketing priorities for your company.
Having a clear picture of your business’s current situation as well as your future goals will allow you to evaluate your marketing options. Clear goals are a powerful motivator! Continuously setting and meeting objectives is the foundation of success in any business market.
The following process will allow you to identify areas for business growth, and then help you to focus your efforts for the best results. While it’s important to know what actions to take to meet your goals, it’s just as important to know which actions are taking time and money away from your immediate goal.
3 Steps for Deciding on the Best Marketing Tactics
1. Diagnose the Problem –
Define the challenges your business is currently facing. Consider both the current state of your business and the overall market. This might involve brainstorming with your team or conducting a data-driven Market Analysis. The most common problems that business’s face when looking to improve profitability boil down to three main areas: Impression, Revenue, or Reputation.
2. Define your Marketing Objective –
Outline an overall plan to solve the problems your business faces. Will the biggest boost in profitability come from improving brand awareness and the impression that potential customers have of your business? Do you need to focus on driving revenue with new leads or increased sales from your customers? Will nurturing leads and improving your online reputation make the changes you need to build your business?
Importantly, you must specify a measurable outcome. Meeting this measurable objective defines your overall Marketing Strategy. You will use this objective to direct action and to ensure you remain focused.
3. Create a Plan of Attack –
Formulate a series of specific actions needed to ensure your marketing strategy meets your business goals. These actions are the Marketing Tactics you will employ to meet your main marketing objective and to overcome challenges along the way. Often, you’ll use a series of tactics that work together for the best results.
Case Study: A Successful Marketing Strategy in Action
When a successful eCommerce company noticed a gradual decline in monthly sales through their website they needed to quickly identify the problem. A market analysis and Conversion Audit revealed a steady rate of returning customers with some growth in the number of new customers. The greatest concern was a decline in the average value of each completed purchase. After looking at what their competitors were doing, the eCommerce company decided to offer incentives to upsell.
They determined that the objective for their overall Marketing Strategy would be to increase the cart value of converted sales. This goal defined their action plan.
To accomplish this goal, the tactics chosen to form their plan of attack included revamping their Customer Loyalty program and a small design change on their website to include a ‘Related Products’ page before checkout. Their Email Marketing and Social Media pages began a one-time campaign to promote a coupon for free shipping for purchases that met a dollar-value threshold.
While it may have been tempting to try and break into new market areas and drive more sales through increasing web traffic, in this case, the fastest and most lucrative marketing solution was simply to increase the dollar value of their existing sales. An impressive increase in their ROI gave them more money to play with in their marketing budget. They built on their success with a new holiday marketing campaign that encouraged social media sharing and online engagement with their top customers. This resulted in some great User-Generated Content, saw a boost in their social media interaction, and brought more new customers to their eCommerce website.
Examples of Business Goals or Marketing Objectives
There’s any number of different goals that you might have for your business. But, essentially, the overall objective for any marketing plan is to make your business more successful and increase your profits. The most common business goals include:
- Increase sales.
- Improve brand awareness.
- Bring in new customers.
- Get existing customers to purchase more.
- Introduce a new product or service.
- Increase your business’s market share.
- Expand into new market areas.
- Entice your competitor’s customers to trial your services.
- Better establish your brand as industry leaders.
- Improve customer loyalty.
- Improve your business reputation
Examples of Marketing Tactics to Achieve Your Goals
Paid Search or Google Ad Campaigns will help improve brand awareness and make it easier for potential customers to find you.
Loyalty Programs and Personalized Email Newsletters help to nurture existing customers and improve brand loyalty.
Engaging social media content and interaction is a great way to make customers feel like a valued part of your community and bring in new leads.
Regular, relevant blog articles establish your business as experts in the industry, and are also a great way to introduce new products or services.
Review Requests boost your online reputation by delivering social proof of your business performance.
Revamping your website experience can dramatically improve revenue by making it easier for customers to make a purchase. Make a great first impression with an easy-to-navigate landing page.
Not sure where to start to scale your business?
Contact us and talk to a MercDigital marketing expert. We’ll analyze your brand’s performance and get you back on track to building a successful business.
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