Strategic Marketing v’s Tactics: A practical guide for small business owners.

Do you feel challenged and not very confident when navigating the vast and ever-evolving world of marketing?

It can be overwhelming, even for seasoned marketers, especially when you are juggling limited resources, time constraints and sometimes even a sense of isolation.

Let’s break it down:

Strategic Marketing: The compass

Imagine your marketing efforts as a long and adventurous journey for your business.

Strategic marketing is like the compass that keeps you on the right path and ensures you reach your destination - successfully and safely!

This is where you set clear goals and design a roadmap to achieve them.

Consider these steps as a part of the strategic marketing process and document:

1. Define your purpose: what do you stand for and what problem do you solve for your customers? This is the foundation upon which all marketing decisions are made.

2. Understand your target audience: Spend time getting to know your customers and don’t just assume you know everything. Think about and research their pain points, desires and preferences. This helps you tailor your marketing to resonate with your new customers.

3. Check out your competitors: check in on their own marketing efforts to see if you can learn from their successes or challenges.

4. Say it clearly and consistently: Clearly communicate what makes you unique and why it’s the best solution for your customers.

5. Research your channels: Where are your audience hanging out? Research your intended channels or ask your current customers what channels they are using.

6. Adapt and tweak: Keep your focus on the longer term goals but be flexible enough to adapt if your market/industry/community changes.

Grow A Small Business Podcast:

“Marketing problem is rarely the actual issue, it is the productivity, efficiency, and leadership problem.”

Rachael Evans

Listen to Rachael on our podcast (20 minutes).

Rachael Evans, the Founder & CEO of the Workshop Whisperer.

She is a world-leading visionary business pioneer, speaker, author, and advisor.

Rachael started her marketing and sales career at an early age.

She has grown her own multi-dollar companies in male-dominated global industries

Marketing Tactics: The vehicle

You have captured and documented your strategy.

Now it’s time to select the vehicles that will get you there!

What channels are you currently using, any gaps or maybe it’s time to stop using!

1. Content Marketing: Valuable and relevant content that educates, informs or entertains, like blog posts, videos and infographics.

2. Social Media: Connect with your audience on where they are and build your brand and community of like-minded people.

3. Email: Are you personalising your emails or email newsletters to nurture your existing customers and leads to deliver value and keep them engaged? Email is still the best ROI on all channels, with $44 returned for every $1 invested, the next best (SEO) is half that.

4. Paid Advertising: Have you thought about the budget for sponsored content or paid opportunities on the social media channels?

5. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Worth thinking about outsourcing this work as this is much more than keywords. Ranking higher in search engines takes time, skill and patience.

6. Influencer Marketing: Collaborate with people in your industry that have something to say and align with your values.

7. Events and promotions: Take your marketing into real life with hosted events or special promotions that reward the customers you are targeting.

Striking the Balance

The juggle is with striking the balance between your long term plan and the day-to-day tactics of marketing.

Remember, strategy provides the direction and tactics execute on that vision.

Don’t implement every tactic under the sun, but focus on the ones that support your strategy and resonate with your audience.

Test and monitor, test and monitor, test and monitor and most of all - have fun!

The most successful leaders never stop learning. An easy way to inspire your learning curve is to sign up to our free weekly leadership email. Delivered every Friday and it takes about two minutes to read.

Categories