The strategy – the nuts and bolts of success

Who has never had this problem? Just back from IKEA and standing in the bedroom of your child to build the new ‘Malm’ dresser. Driven by your over-zealousness and a brutal misinterpretation of the Nike slogan ‘Just Do It’, you take a look at the instruction leaflet and think ‘I would laugh if I can not do it without help’. After four hours of hard work, you finally give up and have to admit that it would have been better to work with a well-planned system. In the end, the creative minds at IKEA have thought of something in the compilation of the instructions.

Of course, as in any good story, there is a moral here as well. In general, it is easier to achieve your goals with a clear strategy or a plan.

This insight also applies in the marketing world. A clever marketing strategy is the foundation of every successful and competitive business. It is an underestimated success factor in most cases, which can contribute a lot to the company’s success. How much success a well-conceived marketing strategy can bring was shown in 2004 ‘Dove’ with their ‘Real Beauty’ campaign. Not only did they acquire new customers through the campaign, they also completely redefined the term ‘beauty’.

Without a certain strategy, the way to the set goal becomes very bumpy and riddled with unknowns. It is therefore very important to develop a well-developed strategy right from the start so that you understand what needs to be done to achieve the goal.

As already discussed in the blog ‘Marketing Trends 2018 – Not to lose sight of the big changes’, there are many new aspects that will shape the marketing industry. (Link to Marketing Trends Blog 2018). It is all the more important to have a concrete strategy to use these new insights to your advantage. This blog is intended to serve as a kind of user manual using a modular principle.

The goal is the fundamental basis for the success of the marketing strategy – Be ‘SMART’

A strategy should, by definition, show a way to achieve a goal. That is, to develop a marketing strategy, you first need a goal. From an entrepreneurial point of view, this would mean starting with the actual state of the company at the beginning (for example, using a SWOT analysis). There, various parameters such as sales, market share, profitability, image and customer satisfaction flow into it. These are then compared with the target state – that is how it will look in the future in the company, the target. There, more specific marketing goals should emerge. Only then can a marketing strategy be developed to bring about the desired state of the company.

Of course, it is important to stick with realistic goals, because if the goals are completely covered, even the best marketing strategy will not work. A great tip for this would be to develop a SMART matrix.

What does your target group look like and do you understand the customer correctly?

Who exactly should use your product or service at all? Are you aware of who you offer your product to? You alone know the best about your product.

The whole thing is a bit like a brokerage. Imagine that you were the product and needed to be marketed. You know yourself best and know who suits you best. The same principle applies when it comes to the target group. Parameters such as age, location, gender, income level, and many more play a role there.

What exactly are the problems and needs of your customers? This is the essential question to approach customers with solutions. In order to understand people better, it is important to analyze carefully what is needed and above all how to respond to the needs with the products.

Look out for your competitors

As soon as your product or service is on the market, the greatest danger lurks in the fact that your competitors are poaching customers by offering you a better product, or a better variant of the product. Therefore, it is important to develop a competitive analysis so that you know exactly who might become a serious threat to you in the future.

The marketing mix matters

A significant part of the marketing strategy is the marketing mix. This includes four subareas: product, price, distribution and communication policy:

  • Product Policy: This area deals with the selection, development and marketing of tangible and intangible services.
  • Pricing Policy: This area relates to the retail pricing of the company. It is important here that the profit maximization and the price / performance ratio are in line.
  • Distribution Policy: These are the marketing channels, or describe the management activities that deal with the distribution of the product or service from the seller to the customer.
  • Communication policy: describes management activities that deal with the exchange of information between sender and receiver.

Conclusion:

It is clear that a marketing strategy alone does not necessarily promise success. However, a strong and well-developed marketing strategy is the ground plan for a successful launch of a product or service. One has to keep in mind that developing a strategy takes a lot of time. Nevertheless, one should make sure that it is worked out as well as possible, in order to record accordingly great results.

That’s where we come in.

As a marketing agency and consulting for marketing strategy, we accompany our customers precisely in this challenge. With the help of standardized processes, we accompany our customers step by step on the way to the goal we have worked out together.

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