Marketing Strategy

How to Write a Marketing Strategy

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One of the most important activities a company should do before attempting to market and promote itself is developing a plan. By writing about various goals and expectations, you’ll be bale to market it more effectively. Let’s take a a good look at how to develop a Marketing Strategy.

Be sure to download the attached Word Document so you can follow along.

There are five concepts you need to focus on when developing a strategy to market your business. They about your Accomplishments, Audience, Competition, Vision Statement, and Unique Selling Proposition. The more detail you can give when writing about each of these concepts, the better equipped you’ll be when venture off into social media. Let’s look at each one.

Also: Check out the previous article in this series where we discuss a Company Profile.

What do you want to accomplish?

You have a presence online for a reason. Are you trying to sell something? Are you trying to build awareness? Are you artistic and want to people to appreciate your work? Do you have a group you belong to that needs more members? Take a moment to write about what you want to accomplish with your online presence (your web site, and social media). “Vic.co wishes to create a powerful social media presence because we want to interact with existing customers, and through word-of-mouth, reach new customers. We want to connect with people on Instagram in a very visual way.”

Who is your target audience?

It’s important to focus on a target audience. It’s nice to say that “everyone” would be interested in your product (or cause, or group), but it just isn’t true in the real world. Who are the people that would like to know about your product? What are their age ranges? Gender? Economic group? Musical style? In short, who would care about your product? In essence, we are creating a Marketing Persona of a potential client. “The people who want to hire Vic.co are people that are trendy, but know what they want. They are people that are in their 30s who are successful, own their own company, need a web site, and know the value of web design.”

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Do you have aspirational competition?

It’s good to have role models, both in life, and in business. Is there a business you see that makes you think, “I want to be like that.” Or a business that makes you think, “I want to do that, but better!” List a company, person, brand, or etc. that you feel is in competition with you, but that you would like to emulate. Why do you want to emulate them? “Vic.co feels that XY DesignZ is our aspirational competition because they are well known in the field of web design and their style is unique and modern. They use Pinterest expertly.”

Vision Statement

A Mission Statement tells the world where you stand. A Vision Statement tells the world where you’re going. Write a statement that makes predictions about what you want to accomplish as a company/brand. You may set a time horizon (five years, for example), too. “Vic.co will be known for providing eye-catching web design for San Diego’s most elegant restaurants.”

Unique Selling Proposition

What could you provide your customers that no one else can? What makes you stand out from the rest? How do you uniquely solve their problems? Answer the question of, “Why?” That is, why would a client hire you? That is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).  “Vic.co is based in San Diego, and many from our team graduated from Southwestern College, San Diego State University, and UCSD. We, therefore, know the local culture. We can create compelling web sites that cater to San Diego companies.”

Final Thoughts

Think of this document is a living document; it will change and grow as your business changes and grows. You will probably add to it, maybe subtract from it, and even start anew, as you get more comfortable with marketing. In our previous article, we showed you how to put together a Company Profile.

Download the Marketing Strategy document for free.