Marketing is an integral part of any business to achieve long term goals and get success. But it is also necessary to put your cards right to gain the attention of the target audience via your marketing campaign. For this, you are required to effectively strategize your marketing plan. There are several factors that you must consider before planning your marketing strategy. But at first, let us take a look at what marketing is.
What is marketing?
Marketing is a process of creating, analyzing, and delivering content to the audience or potential customers. One of the key aspects of marketing that one should always remember is that the information you are providing to the people must be relevant. With irrelevant information, you won’t be able to grab the attention of the audience and your whole campaign might fail. There has to be a value for your customers in the information you are providing and that is the only way by which you can make them ready to try out your product or service.
Marketing completely depends upon what you are saying and the way by which you are saying. Instead of focusing on creating a large content, it is better to be precise and to the point. Plus, the content must be engaging and attractive enough to gain attention.
In other words, you can say that marketing is a teaching process in which you tell customers why your product or service is better for them rather than your competitors. If you succeed in gaining their trust, then you will definitely read great benefits but for that, it is important that everything you’ve said to the audience must be true.
Stages of marketing
There are four basic stages of marketing that drive your product to the end-users.
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Creation of idea
The first and foremost thing you must focus on is to create an idea about how will present your product in front of the audience. For this, it is very important to understand what your product is and the type of audience you want to target. For example, showing beauty products to men will take you nowhere, for that you have to target women of a specific age group. Plus, while creating an idea it is also important to decide how you will pack your product to make it attractive and presentable.
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Research
Now, once you have created an idea about how will be going to launch your product to the target audience, the next important stage is to do proper market research. Before taking the next step, you must know what your competitors are doing and how they are targeting customers to buy their products. While doing the research, you will also come to know about the interests of people and will be able to decide the right price for your product.
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Advertisement
Advertisement is one of the most important parts of your marketing campaign and it is important to put all your cards on the right spot. You can use your research to create an advertising plan for your products. Advertisements can be done via social media, direct on to one marketing, public relations, and through events. Your content for advertisements should be engaging and informative enough to get the attention of the target audience.
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Selling
The last and fourth stage of marketing is the selling of products. Through ideation, research, and advertisements, you’ve made people aware of your brand and it’s the right time to sell. It’s up to you to decide how you want to sell your product, via wholesalers to retailers or through online marketing or both. The success will depend on how good your product is and how well you’ve marketed it.
Working on these four stages with the right approach, you will be able to achieve long term goals. This will also help you stand strong between the tough competition and grow.
Steps to create a marketing strategy
A successful business largely depends upon how well your marketing plan is and the way you execute it. Let us see the steps that’ll help you create a good marketing strategy:
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Set goals
The first step while creating a marketing strategy is to set goals & objectives you want to achieve. It is of great help for long-term plans. Setting goals will improve your focus and give you the target that you want to achieve.
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SWOT analysis
Abbreviated for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, you must conduct a SWOT analysis of your business to prepare better for any future problems. This analysis will help you work on your weaknesses and eliminate the risk of any unknown issues. Plus, you will be able to know about the coming opportunities and create a plan to grab them before anyone does. While on the other hand, detecting potential threats early will be of great help in creating strategies to tackle them or even avoid them.
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Create an effective message
Messaging is considered an important part of your marketing strategy, but it is a very important frame your message right. The message you want to show it to the audience must be clear, precise, and must have basic information about your business. Besides, you can also add details about your products in the most engaging and attractive way. These messages can be incorporated in your marketing channels like press releases, social media, and advertisements.
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Set a budget
Budget is a very important aspect for any business and it should be set before you start executing your plans. Similarly, while creating a marketing strategy, it is important for you to set a defined budget and then start your campaign accordingly.
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Mark your tactics
All good marketing strategies comprise different parameters that are required to be worked upon. The success of those parameters will define the success of your marketing campaign. For this, it is important to highlight the tactics you want to use and work on them to ensure better results. For example, if you have a business of toys, then you must target kids to drive better results plus define the way you want to promote i.e. online or offline.
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Ensure timely action
Another most important factor while strategizing a marketing plan is ‘time’. You must set a timeline for each of your objectives and determine its success after that particular time. This will help you analyze where you are lacking and how much time you require for achieving set objectives.
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Regular analysis
To check the success, you must regularly measure the growth of your campaign and pinpoint the key factors. Through regular analysis, you will stay updated about the success of your business and develop or optimize strategies to do better.
These steps will assist in creating a good marketing strategy that will ensure the success of your business. Plus, these points will also ensure that all your goals stay organized and you are not wasting your time & money. You must also make sure that your marketing plan is up-to-date.
What is the marketing mix?
The marketing mix is a process that plays a vital role for businesses in achieving their set goals. The marketing mix comprises of 4 Ps that are also known as ‘4Ps of marketing’.
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Product
It is the first ‘P’ of the marketing mix. It could be a service or a tangible good depending upon the type of your business. Complete information about your product is the key and you must know the problems it is going to solve for the users. Those features will become the unique selling points (USPs) of your product and will differentiate it from others.
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Price
The next ‘P’ of 4Ps is the price and it is the amount of money that a buyer will actually pay for the product or service. While deciding the price for your product, it is important to know the price at which your competitors are selling a similar product/service. The price directly affects the sales thus, it should be affordable & competitive enough that people should choose your brand instead of your competitors.
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Promotion
Now, once you’ve set USP and price of your product, your next step will be its promotion. For that, you’ve to analyze and strategize marketing channels you want to try. One of the most effective and trending marketing platforms is social media. Promoting your product on the right social media platform is as important as the quality of your product.
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Place
You must know the right platform to sell your product so that the targeted audience can easily be reached. Thus, if you are targeting millennials the best platform to sell your product is e-commerce. So, the place where customers can buy your product also holds the key.
Purpose of the marketing mix
The main reason for the development of the marketing mix is to ensure that marketing strategy created by businesses hit the right spot. Planning the marketing strategy according to the 4Ps of marketing will help in its successful execution. Thus, it is always good to adopt a marketing mix while making a marketing plant.
The Bottom Line
Executing plans after setting objectives is always helpful in achieving the goals and getting satisfaction. In businesses, marketing is of most importance to get leads, create brand awareness, and increase sales. But if you are not doing it right then everything will go in vain doesn’t matter how good your product is. So, to put your marketing campaign right, you must create an effective marketing strategy and then work accordingly. Moving forward step by step will help you create a strong presence in the market and optimize the strategy at any of the steps you feel necessary to improve results.