Marketing strategy is not just about what you do today but a comprehensive and long-lasting action plan that aims at achieving the ultimate goal of any business. It is not about what you implement today but long term strategies to grow your business into a large scale venture.
Marketing strategy is a general game plan and a long term, forward looking approach by any business or any company with the basic purpose of understanding customers’ needs and wants.
Any marketing strategy starts by defining your target audience. This can be done by asking people involved in the actual sale as well as existing customers of the product or services you are offering.
Once you have these, you need to know who else in the industry may have a potential interest in those products or services. Your next step is to create the sales funnel that will bring your audience directly to you. It may also include other means like emailing, telemarketing, direct mail, or cold calling but the main concept here is to have a means where people will go directly to you and be able to buy from you.
There are many digital marketing strategies available to help businesses achieve their marketing goals. Advertising is always a must for any business to boost its sales and drive traffic to their website. For example, digital marketing strategies like email advertising can be very effective in reaching your target audience.
This is because it enables you to reach people at a cellular level, as opposed to sending them through a physical mailing box or even though snail mail. Email advertising is very cost-effective for small-scale enterprises.
Next in any marketing strategy is visibility. It is essential for a business to create visibility so that people are aware of its existence and of the services and products they offer. Digital marketing strategies like creating and distributing press releases can greatly contribute in creating awareness among your target audience.
Another great marketing strategy for your website is writing blogs. By doing so, you become more visible to the public and you create backlinks to your site. Backlinks are important factors in search engine rankings.
Search engines tend to rank websites according to the number and quality of links that are attached with each website. Thus, if you can build up more links to your site, then this would reflect in the rankings of search engines and help you in getting better results in terms of traffic and in turn profit.
Social media marketing plans may need further tweaking depending on how your target audience responds to your tactics. Different businesses have different marketing plans, so you may need to experiment with some tactics to see which works best for you.
Social media tactics can include Facebook fan page, Twitter marketing tactics, blogging, bookmarking, and other viral tactics that will get you more attention from the public.
Another important part of your marketing strategy is to develop and maintain a strong value proposition. The value proposition refers to everything that you want customers to know about your products or services.
If you want your business to be successful, then it is necessary that you provide customers with enough information that they can make a decision whether to transact with you or not. Your value proposition should include your unique selling propositions or the key benefits of your offerings. It is important that you are able to consistently communicate with your customers to keep them updated with what you are offering.
You should also consider building a brand. When people start associating your name with your value proposition and with your brand, then they are likely to react positively towards you.
A strong brand can help you overcome the negativity that surrounds many websites online. Other marketing strategies such as SEO can also be used to build your brand. However, before you embark on any of these strategies, you should conduct thorough research and analyze your competition as well as your target audience.
Deepak Wadhwani has over 20 years experience in software/wireless technologies. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies including Intuit, ESRI, Qualcomm, Sprint, Verizon, Vodafone, Nortel, Microsoft and Oracle in over 60 countries. Deepak has worked on Internet marketing projects in San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange Country, Denver, Nashville, Kansas City, New York, San Francisco and Huntsville. Deepak has been a founder of technology Startups for one of the first Cityguides, yellow pages online and web based enterprise solutions. He is an internet marketing and technology expert & co-founder for a San Diego Internet marketing company.
