A Proven System

In a competitive world, it gets hard to be able to create a successful marketing strategy with proven results. From social media marketing to excitingly explosive brand awareness, there are many techniques and methods business leaders can use to ignite amazingly profitable advertising strategies.

But what are the steps you need to take to be able to craft a proven marketing system? By reading this article on top marketing strategies, you will learn what is marketing, what are the different types of marketing, and what are the steps that you can take to come up with a killer marketing strategy in the future.

What is Marketing?

Marketing is basically the action or the business of getting to promote and sell products and services, and it actually includes advertising and market research. It is the systematic process of allowing customers to become interested in a service or product.

How does that even become a reality? Through a remarkably keen investment on analysis, market research, and the insightful knowledge of the target audience’s needs, desires, and pain points. Marketing is ubiquitous and relevant to all types of businesses - that goes for product development, advertising, sales, or distribution methods.

Here are some marketing stats that will allow readers to understand the value of marketing:

• In 2018 alone, total media ad spend worldwide rose by 7.4%, reaching a whopping $628.63 billion
• North America is the top advertising market, with a 37% share of the world’s media, representing an astounding $232.48 billion
• 41% of all businesses spend $500.000 a year on digital marketing alone
• 99% of businesses will actually increase their digital marketing spend in 2019
• Omnichannel ad strategies are driving an 80% higher rate of incremental visits to stores for local businesses

Types of Marketing

As with every area of expertise, there are umpteen different marketing types. Today, we will focus on some of the most popular types of marketing.

Here are the most common types of marketing:

• Public Relations
• Branding
• Online
• Direct

Public Relations

The publicity gathered from statements and other newsworthy endeavors that a company disseminates is known as public relations. This is a wildly popular form of marketing that works alongside promotions and ad campaigns.

By taking advantage of insightful planning, you can get to promote your brand through releasing public relations statements (known as press releases) to such informative platforms as newspapers, online media, TV, radio, etc.

Branding

A brand lets companies conceptualize an ideal of what their product is, allowing them to better sell products. Branding is a hugely popular marketing type that serves as a concrete platform for future ad campaigns.

It allows the services or products to become appealing, something which happens through the use of clever names, visuals, logos, and memorable slogans.

Online

Online marketing can be done in sundry formats such as social media marketing, content marketing, online media marketing, online ad marketing, mobile app advertising, etc.

It’s basically all about allowing a brand to disseminate its power online, using the Internet’s fantastic reach and enlightening target audiences about a specific service or product.

Direct

What is direct marketing? It’s when manufacturers actually deal with consumers on a direct basis.

This means that this type of marketing eliminates all sorts of third-party professionals or intermediaries, such as wholesalers or middle retailers. Direct marketing can be performed using the telephone or email marketing, allowing companies to sell products directly to the most coveted target audiences.

Here are some other marketing types:

• Multi-Level
• Philanthropic
• Point of Purchase
• Word-of-Mouth
• Transactional
• Diversity
• Relationship
• Undercover
• Guerrilla
• Email
• Content

5 Key Steps to Create a Successful Marketing Strategy

1. Thorough Analysis

One of the worst mistakes that blight marketing strategies is a patent lack of analytical ability. Those who want to devise a successful marketing strategy must forcibly start from the beginning: analyze the competition and create a pristinely-defined benchmark.

You can opt for the popular SWOT technique, analyzing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, taking your specific business plan and target audience into account. You should focus on the economy, the advantages of the product, the benefits it showcases, the features it brings about, always comparing your product with what is already out there.

You can use B2B marketplaces, social media platforms, case studies, infographics, and all sorts of different media to understand:

• What competitors have done in terms of marketing
• What are the Key Selling Propositions that have allowed competitors to stand apart
• What are the benefits, features, discounts, and offers that other companies have been able to make use of to stay ahead of the game
• What exactly sets brands apart from each other
• How to ensure the company’s marketing message, elevator pitch, and sales pitch contain all that the brand, service or product can offer

By performing thorough market analysis and detailed benchmarking, you will be able to start exploring marketing strategies, knowing where you should be going and how to get there.

2. Much-Needed Goals

Now that you’ve analyzed the competition and have come up with a wealth of powerful analytical data that can enlighten your path, it’s time to set goals. Before actually devising a marketing plan, you should have a concrete goal in mind.

What is the end game? What is the objective?

This should all be based on long-term goals, which can be fragmented into clearly-defined short-term objectives. It’s all about seeing the entire cake, and being able to split it into different slices. Each slice represents a link in the chain, and marketers must be able to see the big picture as they complete goals.

It helps to create a Gantt Chart in order to clearly categorize what actions must be performed to achieve the needed goal. Objectives should also be measurable. For instance, if the marketing plan foresees the existence of a social media account, one of the objectives should be to have 1,000 followers on Facebook.

These minor goals will all be able to produce a major goal, such as increased brand awareness, or market penetration in another country, for example.

3. Tactical Ability

You’ve analyzed your competitors and have created specific goals.

Now, what? It’s about being tactical.

Tactics play a huge role in the world of marketing since they allow companies to understand how exactly they will get to reach their marketing strategy objectives. A super successful strategy is comprised of different marketing tactics, which include both online and offline initiatives.

For example, if the target audience are old people who still read newspapers, the marketing tactic must adumbrate the ideal of advertising in print news. If, on the other hand, the target audience are young, online-savvy skaters, it is intelligent to go for Facebook Groups advertising, advertising on skate-related websites, striking a deal with a popular apparel brand that perceives the skating vibe as a mantra, etc.

It’s all about understanding that objectives are nothing without a specific tactic with which they can be successfully attained.

How to be super effective with a strategic marketing tactic? Ensure you pick the best methods for your specific business, incorporate them into your marketing plan, and understand which tactics work best.

4. Budget Constraints

Here’s an incontrovertible truth that’s been widely acknowledged over the years: there’s no such thing as free marketing. Marketing without a comprehensive budget is like soccer without a ball - it can’t be played. Creating a specific budget for marketing strategies will inform all marketing endeavors, allowing professionals to know what they can and can’t afford.

What to do? Business leaders should analyze a whole plethora of different cost-effective marketing options to ensure the overall success of their marketing system. This doesn’t mean professionals must run away in despair, seeing their options irredeemably limited.

For instance, paid ads and social media ads allow marketers to explore a wide variety of diverse targeting options while also getting to pick the specific amount of money they want to pay for that privilege. By always taking budgetary limitations into account, you will be able to define the best methods, strategies and tactics for your marketing efforts while also making sure not to break the bank in pursuit of advertising success.

5. Measure for Measure

Competitor analysis, goal-oriented ability, select marketing tactics, and budgetary control.

Now, what? It’s time to measure results. Campaigns are live, numbers are coming in hot, and it’s the right moment to actually analyze the return of a specific strategy.

Social media marketing is going well, but how many followers were actually acquired? How many followers clicked to see the website, or converted because they bought the specific product after clicking an appealing CTA? What’s the conversion rate, click rate, and how many units were sold?

Leaving these data-related questions unanswered is anathema for a professional marketeer. In marketing, every press release, marketing statement, social media update, email marketing campaign, television appearance, or print media profile must be measurable and measured.

Measuring the concrete effectiveness of all the efforts performed to create a mighty-complete marketing strategy is of the essence.

Hopefully, you will have the ability to go back and revisit your marketing plan upon analyzing the data. You should adjust paid campaigns, set different bids, optimize ad locations, CTA sizes, banner colors, font sizes, and a bunch of other aspects to ensure each marketing campaign is not only running smoothly but also yielding the best results possible.

Measuring data allows you to keep updating your strategy, eliminating unsuccessful campaigns, investing in new ads, tweaking email marketing send times, etc.

Only by measuring data will you get to conquer the last realm of a thorough marketing strategy, becoming able to follow industry news so you can add new strategies to the game plan, diversifying your campaign strategies in order to achieve the ultimate marketing goal: get more leads, expand brand awareness, acquire new customers, and grow your business.

Marketing Strategy Checklist

Analyzing competitors, thinking about the best marketing tactics, and focusing on specific goals is a mantra that all marketing hopefuls should bear in mind.

By constantly updating your marketing plans and tweaking the best marketing strategies, you will be able to use marketing to boost brand awareness, retain loyal customers, and continue to scale up companies into the future.