Marketing strategies serve multiple purposes in a successful business.
A marketing strategy is a way to clearly define a plan for business goals and customer or client outreach projects. Deciding on a few marketing techniques is a fast and casual way to market your business, but a marketing strategy provides a more in-depth view of a company's strengths, weaknesses and long-term ambitions. Then it summarizes implement ideas that will improve and increase a client/customer base.
Funds Management
When a budget is clearly laid out in a written marketing strategy, you are less likely to overspend. A marketing strategy should include an advertising budget, a budget for customer outreach and a miscellaneous funds budget to cover expenses such as material for marketing meetings. Without the budget portion of a marketing strategy, money could actually be lost rather than gained in the effort to produce a larger customer and client base.
Investment
Consider marketing as an investment for your business. You have to put money out in a marketing budget, but your goal is for the return to be greater than the expense. Over time, your marketing initiatives multiply through your solid reputation, by word of mouth, by your business's name being glued into potential customers' minds and multiple other ways. As years go on, the expense of marketing won't be as much of a sting on your company's budget -- partially because your profit will be greater, and partially because you won't need to do as much advertising because your business will be so much more well known than it was when you first began your marketing strategy.
Accountability
A marketing strategy provides an outline that holds your company's marketing department accountable for its efforts. It is hard to track how much is actually being accomplished through marketing when only a loose plan spends money for an ad here, business cards there and a billboard elsewhere. When you gain new customers and clients, ask them to fill out a survey card stating where they heard about your company. If you have a smaller business, simply ask how they were directed to you. This helps you and your marketing department track what forms of advertising are most effective. Hold quarterly meetings to review the progress of the marketing strategy, so that continuous efforts can be encouraged in the areas that are doing well, and the strategy can be revised for areas that are not as effective.
Playing Field
A marketing strategy allows businesses to "even the playing field," so to speak. Marketing strategies are increasingly popular techniques of successful companies. If your company does not have a marketing strategy, your competitors are likely a few steps ahead of you. Tossing up an ad or running a hasty campaign to draw attention to your business may increase business on a short-term basis, but the absence of a well-planned marketing strategy will eventually cause your efforts to crumble into a never-ending need to jump on the advertising wagon every time your competitor does. An effective marketing strategy will feed off of itself, since various methods of advertising, marketing and public relations will be implemented over time. The long-term benefits put you in a better position to deal with competitors than pulling out the bows and arrows each time your profit goes down.
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