Strategic Marketing

What is Strategic Marketing?

Oxford defines marketing as “the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.”

In other words… the intent of marketing is simply to shorten the sales cycle. Strategic Marketing is doing this, well, strategically. Many smaller or mid-size companies (and even big ones for that matter) recognize the need for marketing, but don’t understand what’s involved to put together a successful, strategic campaign.

Many think marketing is one of those “soft” business skills and don’t give it the thought and resources needed to facilitate the achievement of their objectives. “One form of advertising or marketing is just as good as the other,” they think. “We’ve got $50,000 budgeted for marketing this quarter; let’s just use it where the most people will hear about us. We’ll use $35k for TV and the remainder on radio.”

Strategic Marketing calls for a more structured approach where we define what we’re trying to accomplish, measure and analyze the markets and media options and implement an integrated campaign that will help you capture the most value for your budgeted marketing dollars by achieving your defined objectives.

After you have defined you business objectives, the basic thought process should go something like this:

1. IDENTIFY your audience or market

• If you’re an established business, look at your consumer base and Identify the type of consumer you want more of
• If you’re a startup, form a clear picture of what type of consumer you want to attract

2. Thoroughly UNDERSTAND your audience or market

• Where do they live
• What do they do every day
• What are their passions
• What media do they engage with most
• What messages resonate with them, etc.

3. SELECT the marketing mediums that your target is most engaged with

• E.g., If your audience is a teeny-bop, communicate with them through Facebook and American Idol
• If you’re going after business men, you may want to hit them through LinkedIn PPC and a Wall Street Journal print spot

4. DEVELOP a messaging strategy to effectively communicate with your audience

• With a clear picture of your target audience in your mind, determine what message will most effectively move your target to take the desired action

5. EXECUTE a consistent, integrated campaign across your selected mediums

• Keep you branding and messaging consistent. You only want one message to stick with your consumers. If you can’t keep it consistent, you’ll become irrelevant in the minds of your audience.
  Each medium has pros and cons. Leverage the pros as much as possible.

6. MONITOR your results and make necessary adjustments along the way

• If your LinkedIn PPC campaign is driving 30% more new business than your Google Adwords campaign, you may determine it’s best to shift the Adwords funds to the LinkedIn campaign