Creating the Perfect Marketing Strategy without Copying It

Not all businesses are created equal, right?

So quit marketing and advertising your business like everyone else.

My point is simple: Find the right combination of advertising, marketing, PR and promotional activities that fit the unique offering, customer base and budget of your business, and you’ll find success.

Don’t just jump on the Twitter or Facebook marketing bandwagon because the company down the street has found success with it.  Or, alternatively, spend thousands on one strategy while ignoring others that might prove effective.

Creating the perfect marketing strategy does involve some trial and error. Gently test the waters of any new marketing tactic and see what kind of results you get, before investing huge sums. However, with that said, you also need to give each marketing tactic enough time and impressions to see results, so don’t give up too early.

So how should you go about creating a marketing plan or strategy for your business?

Many business owners want to skip this step of creating a marketing plan. But it’s very important to the future success of the business. While I highly recommend a formal, written down and thought out marketing plan, if you don’t want to pay a professional like myself to develop one, you should at least sit down and analyze the basics of your business:

1. Define your product/service, niche, industry, competitors, unique selling proposition (USP), price point, and primary/secondary target audiences.
2. From there, investigate all possible advertising/marketing/PR/promotional options available, along with associated cost, audience reached, timing and other details. Include the cost of your time as well in these estimates.
3. Then make a recommendation of a combination of these tactics to try and put them in a marketing calendar for the upcoming quarter/year.
4. Evaluate the effectiveness of each tactic when determining whether to renew your investment in it.

A simple way to a marketing strategy that works for you. Just remember: All businesses are different, and thus the ways used to promote them should be unique as well.