Strategy before tactics - the key to marketing success

Want to take your marketing strategy to the next level? We all know how easy it is to get bogged down with tactics, however, it’s important for you to take a step back and make sure your strategy is on point. This will allow you to identify how well your marketing efforts are supporting your overall business objectives. With the right strategy in place your organisation can reap substantial benefits such as:

• Higher conversion rates
• Increased ROI
• Improved brand awareness
• More sales.

Without a vivid goal or strategy, your tactics become irrelevant - it’s why strategy before tactics is so important. To help, here are some simple things you can do in your organisation to help create and apply tactics that will actually deliver the goods.

1. Activate your network

   This is for educational purposes. Arrange for key people in your business to attend networking groups on behalf of your organisation. This will allow them to tap into the knowledge of others in the same industry by forming relationships and connections. Allowing your team to do this will be more beneficial than you may realise. It will spark creativity and inspiration within your team allowing them to think of new and better concepts that could benefit your marketing strategy.

2. Understand your audience

   The idea of marketing is to plot inspiration and triggers within your audience so that they have the urge to interact with your business. This is why you need to understand the desires, wants and needs of your customers. It will also allow you to add value to their experience which will help you differentiate yourself from competitors. You can do this by creating persona profiles of your intended customers. This will help you outline their likes, dislikes, hobbies and interests.

3. Build your tactics

   Once you understand the desires, wants and needs of your audience, you can start to build your tactics. Create tactics that will both inspire and trigger your customers based on what you offer and what they are looking for - this will urge them to interact with your business - the ultimate goal. If you’re unsure what inspires or triggers your audience, refer back to the persona profiles you created in point two. Use their likes and dislikes for tactical inspiration.

4. Plan of attack

   Now that you have your tactics ready, it's time to plot. Do this strategically - don’t use all of your ammo at once. It might be worth creating a schedule or a content calendar that outlines what you will market and when you will do it. It can sometimes be a bit of a game of trial and error - don’t be alarmed if this is the case. You can’t be expected to know the ins and outs of your customers straight away - it will take time. This is why you need to track the performance of your marketing so you can see what works and what doesn’t.

That’s it…

It may seem simple but taking it back to basics is what will really help you nail your marketing strategy.

To stay on top of the performance of your organisation, check out this blog.