What Defines A Good Marketing Strategy?
Marketing is essential if you want your business to succeed and grow. Having a good marketing strategy in place means that you can confidently spend the right money in the right places and offer your customers and potential customers an all-round great experience. What is it, though, that makes a good marketing strategy?
Know Your Product
In order to properly market your product, you need to really know your product. What is it that it can do that makes it stand out from the crowd? What is it that makes it unique? You need to know every detail of your product’s features and benefits, and you need to understand just what it is that makes it work. When you have these details, your marketing strategy will be a lot easier to determine, as you’ll know what to advertise to ensure people want your goods or services. You may want to conduct market research with expert market research agencies to find out what the public thinks – or you could listen to online feedback, even if it’s criticism (even poor feedback can help you).
Branding
Branding is essential when it comes to working out a good marketing strategy. Having the right kind of branding means that your product will stay in people’s minds and that it will be the first thing they think of when they need whatever it is you’re selling. Creating a memorable brand is not as easy as you might think, so take your time over it. If you want professional help, a branding company will be able to create extraordinary campaigns to push your brand and product even further into the public’s consciousness. Using your brand in your marketing strategy is essential; it needs to be cohesive and stay within the message of your brand otherwise people will become confused and won’t be sure whether they can truly trust your company.
Promotions
Part of a good marketing strategy is having the right promotions at the right time, in the right places. Products won’t sell themselves until you are a household name (and even then, it’s not guaranteed), but to get there, you need to promote your products as much as possible. There are many different ways to advertise, such as TV, radio, Google AdWords, Facebook, local or national newspapers, even on the side of a bus, but if you aren’t targeting the right people, you will waste your money. It’s important to know who is buying your product (more market research can tell you this) so that you can tailor your marketing strategy towards them.
Ensuring that the right people see your ads is crucial – you can have an amazing product, but if no one knows about it (or the people who do know don’t want or need it), you still won’t sell any. Market to the right groups, and you’ll sell a lot. It makes a big difference.
Pricing
Getting your pricing right is another crucial element of your marketing strategy. Pricing your items too high will put people off, of course, but did you know that pricing them too low will do the same? People may think that they are cheap for a reason and mistrust them, and you. Working out the ideal price point combines more market research (see what your competitors are charging) and how much profit you want to make. You can even charge the same as a competitor but throw in a free gift or upgrade at the same time, making your product worth more.