Logistics of a Marketing Strategy
According to John Jantsch, author of "Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide," an effective marketing strategy requires understanding your company and your competition then choosing a strategy for differentiating yourself and committing to it. Logistically speaking, there are several important components of a marketing strategy, including your objectives, customer analysis, competitive analysis and action plan.
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Objectives
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One of the most important components of a marketing strategy is the objectives section. To break each of your objectives down logistically, write them in a way that is "SMART:" measurable, attainable, realistic and time-driven. Be sure your objectives meet each of these five criteria when writing your objectives. Here is an example: "Increase our direct mail response rate by 1 percent by September 2011."
Customer Analysis
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According to the Business Link website, identifying the key customer segments you do business with and their needs is one of the most important elements of your marketing strategy. Customer analysis is an in-depth process that requires months of time and plenty of research. The easiest but most expensive way to conduct research about your target customers is to hire a market research company. If you don't have funds in your budget to hire an outside vendor, you can do online research yourself and make observations about your current groups of customers. For example, you may notice that a significant portion of your customer base is young women under the age of 30 who are not married. This is one customer segment that you can identify in your marketing strategy.
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Competitive Analysis
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The competitive analysis is another important component of your marketing strategy. To break down your competitors logistically, make a list of each of your main competitors. For each business on your list, describe the strengths and weaknesses of the company; it's market share in your industry; and projected threats to your business in the coming year. Then, include as much detail as you can about each of the marketing strategies and tactics they have used in the past to promote their business.
Action Plan
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The action plan is the finally piece of the puzzle in your marketing strategy. To create a thorough, detailed action plan, revisit your objectives and choose several marketing tactics that will help you accomplish those objectives. For example, if one of your objectives was "Increase revenue in the online market by 10 percent by the third quarter" you could describe several marketing tactics you are going to use to promote your services online, such as search engine advertising, social media marketing and email marketing. Once you outline your tactics, include a timeline that communicates the dates you plan on implementing each tactic.
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