Small business marketing strategy is crucial for marketing planning.
Hi
“Hi, I’m Tracy Heatley. Welcome to this episode of my Be Better With Tracy Heatley podcast.
Which Marketing Strategy?
Which marketing strategy is best for small businesses?
This is one of the most generalised questions I get asked, especially when I’m meeting a new marketing client for the first time.
The short answer is that it depends on several variables. Some of which we’re going to explore together in this episode.
Right now, I can’t give you specific marketing advice and direction for your business, because I don’t understand the current position of your business, or what specifically it is that you’re hoping to achieve. However, what I can do is share with you some basic tips on creating a clear path of action to develop a marketing strategy that is best for your business.
Whether you’re into analysis and planning or not, it’s crucial for marketing success, so let’s get started.
SWOT
First, you need do perform what us marketing professionals refer to as a situational analysis. Simply put, what’s happening right now with your business. A simple SWOT analysis will suffice. Focus on your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Then, work out how you’re going to change your weaknesses to strengths and make sure you’ve got contingency to react to or absolve threats. Having a think about why certain elements are strengths and what you can do to exploit them. Pay attention to the opportunities and allocate them as short-term, mid term or long-term opportunities. You may recognise that some of these will impact your marketing objectives too.
PESTLE
Pay respect and attention to what’s happening outside of your business that may create a positive or negative impact. Us marketing folk refer to this as external or macro environment. When you hear or read reference to the macro environment for anything to do with business and marketing, it means something external of your organisation. A PESTLE analysis is great here. All you need to do is denote things like political, environmental, social, technological, legal or ecological that could impact your business. I’d then take these and add them into your SWOT analysis, so that you’ve got all the information you need together.
As you do this, you will a few aha moments and it will impact the decisions your make about your small business marketing strategy.
Competitor Analysis
I talked about how to complete a competitor analysis in an earlier episode. Episode 18 I believe. If you’ve not already done this, you must do it when you’re developing your marketing strategy. It’s essential that you know how you compare to your kay competitors. This will help you assess where and how to position your business in your industry.
No business can be all things to all men and women! You need to define your target audience. Know your customer! Who is your customer and why? You need to know exactly who or what your ideal customer is, so that you marketing is targeted in the right direction. Next, you can document the buying personas of your target audience and what your customer requirements are.
Which Strategy Revealed
All of this will point you in the right direction. You’ll be sure to identify patterns or information that suggests which marketing strategy is right for you. If you’re struggling with this, then do seek help from myself or another marketing professional.
This is the point where you need to start developing your marketing objectives. Make them clear by being SMART. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Remember to make certain that your marketing goals link in with your overall business objectives too.
Marketing Budget
Set your marketing budget. Whether you’ve got a massive, moderate or low marketing budget, you need to decide how much you’re going to spend on marketing. Unlike large organisations that usually have an annual marketing budget, for small business owners, like yourself, this can seem like somewhat of a luxury. When I’m working with my clients, we’re usually working in 90-day blocks, and I’d suggest that you do the same. This way, your get to monitor your marketing activities to assess what’s working and it means that you can reinvest in more marketing as you go. Essentially, increasing your budget as you go. It could be that you’re setting a monthly or quarterly marketing budget, for examples. Just decide what’s right for you.
Marketing Mix
Next, you’ll need to develop your marketing mix. In the next episode, I’m going to go into this in much more detail to help you develop your marketing mix for yourself. I’ll be guiding you through how to establish your 4p’s of marketing. Namely, product, price, place and promotion.
Only after this is doing should you be focusing on the marketing channels that you will us to reach out to your target market.
Get the groundworks firmly in place and the rest will follow.
If you get this and you want to crack on with things yourself, then get cracking.
Get In Touch
If you recognise that you need all this, but you don’t have the time or inclination to do it, get in touch with me, because I may have a marketing consultancy slot available to do this for you. This is a do it for you approach. These places are limited because I only work on two marketing consultancy projects at a time.
If you would like to do things for yourself buy you need some guidance specifically related to you and your business, my online marketing mentoring services may be just what you need. This is a do it with you approach. There’s more information about this on my www.tracyheatley.com website.
There’s also lots of other free resources on the website too, like blogs and podcasts too. This includes a blog about why marketing strategy is important.
Remember, as always that you can be put into the draw for a free 40-minute one-to-one online marketing session with me. All you have to do is subscribe to this podcast and leave me a review on Audible or Apple.
In the meantime, if you would like me to cover a certain part of marketing or networking, go get in touch and I’ll be happy to do this for you.
I’m Tracy Heatley and thank you for listening to my Be Better With Tracy Heatley podcast”.
