In today’s episode we’re going to learn a little bit more about planning a marketing strategy.
Where can you reach your audience?
As discussed in the previous episode, you will first need to figure out where to reach your audience. So, you will have to carry out research on your audience before you proceed. Now, most of the people are now online. So what does this mean? It is more likely that you would have to reach your audience on online platforms such as your website and social media. Following that, you will have to decide what is the message that you want to share. Your message will be the identity of your brand. This can be conveyed through your mission. Your mission shows what you stand for, what your goals are and who you are.
Tactics for a better marketing strategy
It is important to also layout what your tactics are in order to come up with an efficient marketing strategy. Tactics include choosing your action channels, whether it’s offline or online, knowing your audience and identifying your goals. For example, if your targeted audience is a professional group, then it would make sense to use LinkedIn as a social media platform.
Online and offline channels
There are two options for action channels: online or offline. Online action channels includes social media, websites, blogs, YouTube and influencer marketing. Offline action channels can include brochures and sponsorships. Before putting your product or service on the market it is important to identify the different choices that you will have. This can be made easier by using the marketing mix, specifically the 4-P.
The 4-P
This will help you understand your customers visitation to use your services. The 4-P include place, price, product and promotion.
Starting with place. Where your customers are going to find your product or service
Price. What will be the cost of your product or service take into account all the variables that will contribute to this cost.
Product this is simply the product or service that your company wants to produce and sell or provide.
And lastly promotion. Now, that it’s time to promote your product or service you need to figure out what this will include. It can either include advertisements, word-of-mouth or other marketing techniques.
Now that you’re aware of your marketing mix it is important that you make a timeline and Ellicott time for the procedures. With the timeline you should also create a budgeting plan for your marketing. Now, how do you get people to take action and using your product or service? Some key elements include being unique, being transparent, making on his promises and staying consistent.
A few types of digital marketing strategies
Social media marketing for example. It is done on social media platforms where you can post and publish online. A few examples of these social media platforms are Instagram LinkedIn and Facebook.
Now, content marketing. Content marketing is sharing useful and authentic content. This can be beneficial when targeting the lead generation as it will be an incentive for them to get to know your brand a little better and get more information on your products or services.
SEO which is search engine optimization. This will help you improve and increase traffic, both quality and quantity. It will also give you more visibility.
Finally, influencer marketing. This is done by customers that use your products that are significant and they usually influence what other people think about your products. This will create more trust and engagement between the audience and your brand.
The different types of media
Various types of media can be used or earned media, paid media, and owned media. Earned media is basically people wanting to promote your brand for you. So it’s usually done by social influencers or satisfied customers that are posting about your brand. With the earned media, you have no real control over your content.
Paid media are media that you pay, for example with paid influencers or making billboard. With the paid media you have higher amount of control compared to earned media.
And finally, owned media. now here you have a hundred percent control over everything that you post. So this can include website and your social media platforms.
Now, how to influence the decision of this audience to purchase your brand?
The key here is to produce quality content. Convicing material to give your brand a positive brand image.
The next episode is on content marketing. Stay tuned.