How to Develop Effective Marketing Strategies Easily

If you are about to spend your time or money on implementing the latest marketing tactic that you heard about... STOP. In fact if you have not developed a marketing strategy as part of your marketing plan you are probably wasting money. By developing your marketing strategies at the time of marketing planning it allows you to really focus on what is most important to kick start or successfully grow your business.

What is a Marketing Strategy Versus a Marketing Tactic and a Marketing Objective?
Many small businesses can get confused with the jargon, but it is very important to understand the role each one plays in marketing your small business. A marketing objective is simply what you want your existing or potential customers to do. A marketing strategy is your overall game plan and outlines what your business will focus on to achieve your marketing objectives. Marketing tactics are the activities, tools and business decisions that you will need to implement to support your marketing strategies.

Before you develop your marketing strategies you need to have a good understanding of your small business's key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as well as really knowing your target market's needs and desires.

To simplify the process, you can select your marketing strategies using 2 steps.

The first step is to decide the overall direction that is the most important for your business or brand and involves either one or a combination of the following:

Retention i.e. protecting your most profitable customers and keeping them loyal
Expansion i.e. maximising your existing customer relationships through up sell (selling more of the same product or service) or cross sell (getting them to buy other products or services in your range)
Attraction i.e. attracting new customers that have similar characteristics to your existing profitable customers and getting them to return

Whilst it is very tempting to just focus your small business marketing on attracting new customers, protecting and developing your existing customer relationships is far more cost effective and will guarantee a successful business long term.

The second step in deciding your marketing strategy is to determine your key areas of focus. The key here is to only choose those areas that will move your business forward and are necessary. These may include:

Product or Service Offering
This relates to the actual product or service that you sell. If you have selected an overall expansion strategy you may offer additional products to your customers.

Pricing
This has anything to do with the pricing of your product or service. Your attraction strategy might be to offer value added pricing on selected services to attract new customers.

Distribution
This has to do with all the distribution channels you use to sell your product or service or the number of locations you sell in. For example, if you wish to attract new customers, your strategy for the year ahead may be to expand your store locations in one state.

Service Delivery
This relates to the way your product or service is offered to your customers. For example your retention strategy may be to introduce a new customer service policy for your most valuable customers.

Communication
This relates to how you will communicate your brand or business message to your customers. An example of a retention strategy may be to introduce an enhanced personalised communication program for your most profitable customers.

Developing effective marketing strategies for your small business is an essential step in your small business marketing plan and makes selecting your marketing tactics so much easier.

Marketing for Business Success Pty Ltd 2008

Two experienced marketers, Susan Oakes and Bronwen Ryan, have taken the secrets of big business marketing and developed software to assist you with your small business marketing. M4B Marketing Software guides you through the marketing process to review, develop, implement and track your marketing plans and projects. You can easily increase your marketing skills and knowledge as you use the software and learn how to gain the competitive edge. Visit http://www.m4b.com.au and view the Demo.