So often in B2B SME businesses, I see people spending budget on ad-hoc or random marketing activity without really understanding why they are doing it.
Sponsoring local sports teams, purchasing the odd advert or posting content random content on LinkedIn can all be worthwhile activity if it is part of a wider marketing strategy, well planned and ‘joined up’.
The first thing SMEs need to do is step back from this ad-hoc marketing activity and take time to plan and define a strategy.
Ad hoc marketing, without investing time to step back and develop a marketing strategy could be doing your business more harm than good. Why? Ad hoc marketing can lead to:
Inconsistent & mixed messaging
Confusing brand
Lack of trust
Client frustration and confusion
Creating marketing goals, strategies and tactics
Goals
You need to set overall strategic goals for the business, this may be to grow by a particular %, increase brand awareness in a geographical area or to add 15 new customers.
Strategies
The next step is to look at strategies that can help you to deliver your goals. For example you may set strategies like:
Define your ideal clients.
Build or increase your prospect database or audience.
Recruit a sales person or marketing person.
Implement a CRM system to better manage client and prospect relationships.
This step doesn’t have to go into detail, it needs to be more ‘big picture’.
Tactics
Step 3 is now to consider tactics and marketing activity that will help you to achieve your goals and work towards your bigger picture strategy.
For example, these tactics may include:
Purchase LinkedIn Premium and send out 10 connection requests a day to ideal clients.
Purchase a prospect database.
Create a content plan for website and social media content.
Send monthly e-newsletters to clients and prospects.
Add more calls to action to your website.
Attend 10 networking events throughout the year.
The importance of a marketing strategy
Put simply, a professionally created marketing strategy will create a roadmap to help you to achieve your goals and objectives. It will take:
A clear business strategy
Answering sometimes difficult questions
Understanding of your ideal clients
Market knowledge
Challenging the status quo
Strategic timings
Targeted messaging and activity that will be cohesive across multiple platforms.
Summary
Having a marketing strategy will allow you to build trust from your target audience, strengthen your brand and grow, ultimately saving time and money by focusing your resources on marketing activity and plans that support your wider business objectives.