How much should a small business owner spend on marketing? How do I position my small business against giant competitors using my lean budget? How do I create a successful marketing campaign that suits my small budget? Well, I will advice you read on to find the marketing answers you need.
The aim of a good marketing strategy is to help focus your business attention to the complete resource utilization with the goal of increasing sales and defeating your competitors. Every company applies some kind of marketing strategies to retain existing customers, attract new customers and also to sustain and improve their reputation in the market.
Today, I will be using this article as a medium to teach you how to create a successful marketing strategy that suits your budget. This marketing article was specifically written for entrepreneurs and small business owners who are running on a lean budget; I mean entrepreneurs who are bootstrap financing their businesses. If you are such an entrepreneur with a desire to build a successful business or you are just starting a business newly, then it will be in your business interest if you read on.
How to Create a Successful Marketing Strategy that Suits your Budget
Before you commence the development of a marketing plan, it’s advisable you first determine how much your business will be able to spend on marketing. Secondly, you must identify your major competitors and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. Only after taking these two steps should you proceed to fashion out a marketing strategy for your business.
How to Develop a Marketing Plan and Strategy
When developing a marketing plan, a marketing strategy is first taken into account. A marketing plan consists of strategic moves to be taken, so as to achieve success in the execution of the chosen marketing strategy. Just as a battle plan involves selection of different strategies at different levels and situations, so also is a marketing plan full of strategies. A marketing strategy consists of well designed tactics, which are created to help the business meet the needs of the customers and finally reach marketing objectives of the company.
Each marketing strategy has a pre-calculated result. This is so because when a particular strategy is chosen in a particular situation, its result becomes the goal of that particular situation. If a well thought strategy is lacking in a marketing plan, it means the marketing plan lacks good foundation. A realistic marketing strategy should speed up your marketing goal especially when you are running on a limited budget; you just can’t afford to waste resources.
How to Use the 3C’s Strategic Model to Create a Successful Marketing Strategy
Once your marketing campaign is up and running, it’s advisable that at regular time intervals; your business management team should analyze the marketing decision. This is carried out with the help of strategic models and most preferably, the 3C’s model is deemed fit for this purpose.
To calculate your company’s strategic position in the market place, an off matrix is applied. The 3C’s model controls the factors that lead to the success of any marketing campaign. There are 3 key parties involved in this model includes the corporation, the customer and the competitors. The involvement of all the 3 key parties’ leads to positive outstanding results and these key parties are known as the 3C’s or Strategic Triangle.
The function of the corporation is to increase the strength and dominance of the company in critical areas, when compared to that its competitor’s. The customer and his interest form the basis of any marketing strategy. The competitor also plays a crucial role. The competitor based strategies are based on the performance of business competitors in areas such as design and engineering, sales and servicing and so on.
Creating a Successful Marketing Strategy on the 4P’s Model
When creating a marketing plan, you will be laying emphasis on some particular strategies known as mix marketing strategies because they are going to be used more often. The 4P’s model is used to calculate if the plan is aligning with the strategies or not. The four Ps stand for product, price, place and promotion.
Products are goods produced by your company with the aim of selling them and making profit. Price is the perceived value in terms of money or better still, the money paid by the customer for your product. The price is based on many key issues such as competition, market share, customer perception and product identity. Place is where your product is sold. It can be either a physical store or an internet store. It is also called a distribution channel. To make the prospect knowledgeable about your product, you will have to carry out massive promotion which will involve advertising, public relation and point of sale.
4 Types of Marketing Strategies
There are different types of marketing strategies you can implement based on some criteria.
-
Market Dominance strategies
Challenger, Leader and Follower are forms of market dominance strategies. Market dominance strategies are employed to dominate either a mass market or a niche market.
-
Porter generic strategies
Cost leadership, Market segmentation and Product differentiation are classes of porter generic strategies. Porter generic strategies are developed based on the strategic strength of your company, its competing abilities, its strategic scope or its market penetration.
-
Innovation strategies
Close followers, late follower and Pioneers are styles of innovation strategies. Innovation strategies are developed to increase the rate of product development and model innovation. It will help your company align quickly with trend and incorporate latest technologies.
-
Business growth strategies
Intensification, Diversification, Vertical integration and Horizontal integration are classes of business growth strategies. Business growth strategies make the expansion and growth of your company easy.
A successful marketing strategy is therefore a mixture of marketing strategies and military strategies. A marketing strategy is chosen only after thorough market research and before implementing your marketing plan, you must always be ready to face a reprisal attack from competitors.
As a final note, these are my exact steps to creating a successful marketing strategy. So go ahead and implementing these marketing strategies; I will see your business at the top.