Does your business use the 4P marketing strategy or are you clueless about what that even means? More on the 4P marketing strategy later in the article.
One of the first questions I ask a potential client is, “What is your marketing strategy?” Sometimes the answer is, “I don’t have one.” But more often I hear things like “I post on Facebook, sometimes,” or “I have been running ads with XYZ for 20 years.”
That, my friends, is not a marketing strategy.
A comprehensive marketing strategy has three components: a mission, a plan, and measurable results. Let’s break down these components by comparing them to taking a trip.
Define Your Marketing Mission
Planning a trip requires knowing where you want to go (unless you are just taking a wonderful Sunday drive to nowhere). In marketing, you have to know what you want to accomplish. Do you want more leads? Do you want immediate sales? Or are you just looking for brand recognition?
You could want a combination of any of these objectives. And that’s ok. Before you can plan a marketing strategy, you need to know what you want to accomplish. In other words, where are you going?
Make Your Marketing Plan
You know where you want to go, now let’s get there without burning too much gas. You are going to waste time if you don’t know who your market is and how to reach them. Here are a few questions that can help:
Do my potential customers hang out on social media? Which sites do they use? Do they tweet a lot or scroll through Instagram?
Rodan + Fields figured out that their customer demographic is all about selfies and social media. They saw that classic retail selling and marketing was dying and decided to go all in on social media. The Rodan and Fields marketing strategy is an excellent social media marketing case study to research for planning and inspiration.
What kind of information can I provide in my content that will help my potential customers understand the value that my product or service provides?
What print and online publications do my potential customers read? Do they watch or listen to local media? Do they mostly read the local newspaper?
Each industry has its own specific questions. You need to find your business’s questions. The important thing is that you know how to get to your trip destination.
Next, use the 4P marketing strategy or marketing mix to further refine your strategy. The 4P marketing mix is a tool that helps businesses and brands understand what their product or service can offer and how to plan for a successful product or service launch. The 4P marketing mix is organized through the 4 P’s of marketing: Price, Product, Promotion, and Place.
Now you are ready to map your course. And no two destinations are alike. Your plan may include social media marketing on Facebook and Pinterest and weekly blog posts. But your friend in another industry may post on Instagram, publish an email newsletter and blog twice a week. Being different is okay.
Power Tip: Check out the GrabTaxi marketing strategy if you want to see an in-depth study in product/service differentiation, social climate, demographics, mission and plan. If you’re not familiar with them, they are like the Uber of Singapore.
Measuring Your Marketing Results
You don’t want to waste gas and get nowhere or worse yet… get lost in the middle of nowhere. You want to know you have reached your destination. In other words, did your marketing plan help you accomplish your mission? You have to determine how you will measure the results. How often you create reports is up to you. And your key performance indicators (KPI’s) are unique to your business. But just don’t have a marketing plan without knowing how well it’s working. That would waste your time, money and energy.
Here’s some good news. If you didn’t reach your goals, you can always change your course. Maybe you weren’t engaging customers on Instagram but you were having a lot of retweets on Twitter. Your blog may need to be updated more often or your blog content may need a new keyword research approach. It’s okay if you need to go a different direction in order to reach your goals.
At Nao Media we want to know about your marketing needs so that we can help you get to your desired destination. Fill out our marketing questionnaire and then we will contact you for a free consultation. Speak soon!
