In business, marketing is looked at as a given, as a piece to a well-thought business plan that relies on ingenuity, research, and a steadfast commitment. The problem is that sometimes a business’s marketing strategy is not very good, and the best solution is to start making changes as soon as possible so as to keep from the current plan from sinking the business’s chances for success.
It’s a hard reality for any business to face when they’re having to concede that their marketing strategy is terrible. This is due in part to the idea that marketing, as a whole, is thought of as a reflection of the core of who a business is. Using that logic, a bad marketing strategy must mean that a business isn’t much of a business after all. However, it is this black and white look at marketing that needs to change. Businesses need to understand that making necessary changes to various strategies isn’t about failure – it is about getting better.
Here are five changes that businesses need to make to their marketing strategy right now:
Have A Strategy – You might think that in this day and age, every business would have a marketing strategy, but you’d be mistaken. When starting a business can start off as simple as having a shtick & a social media platform, even the traditional business plan can be elusive. If you don’t have a marketing strategy, get one.
Promotion vs Creation – Some businesses have no problem creating content for marketing purposes, but they still aren’t driving commerce. It might be time to concentrate on the promotion of said content because if no one knows you have content that’s worth checking out, your wasting time & money.
Buyer Personas – The creation of marketing content is usually based on what the marketer finds of interest. Unfortunately, you need to be creating content that appeals to the ideal customer. The notion of creating a buyer persona is that your essentially creating the ideal prospective customer. Your marketing content should be created to focus on something they find interesting & of consequence.
Update and Refresh – For some reason, businesses seem OK with never revisiting old content they created. It’s good to go back and see what you’ve done in the past and see if 1) it’s still relevant now; and 2) a good platform for modding.
Varied Content – Relying on one way to get information about you across will get you only so far. A strong marketing strategy varies the content created so as to gain as wide an audience as possible. Social media posts, video posts, e-news letters, and blogs are just the start.
At times, the notion of having some static elements to one’s marketing strategy is looked at as a good thing simply because time is a necessary component to seeing a plan come to fruition. That said, we live in a dynamic world that is in flux at all times, which means that the idea of something being static (standing still) doesn’t jive. Businesses need to understand that in order for their marketing to be successful, it takes monitoring, development, creativity, and above all else, a willingness to admit when something isn’t working.