5 Key Elements to A Successful Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy is the building block of a marketing plan. It lays out a clear, well-defined big picture plan to attract customers to your business by specifying long-term objectives, actions to be taken, and marketing tactics used to achieve marketing goals. B2B marketers often struggle to develop successful marketing strategies. 40% of the least effective marketers have no defined marketing strategy, and 56% of B2B marketers in the United States find it difficult to build their brand through the strategies they create.

Below are some elements to consider when developing your marketing strategy.

Create a Captivating Value Proposition

The foundation of a successful marketing strategy is built on a strong value proposition. Your value proposition should emphasize the relevance, value, and uniqueness of your products to your target audience. Specifically, it should specify how your brand and the products that you offer are better than your competition.

Understanding the value your company provides to customers is essential when creating a marketing strategy. One of the most common deficiencies of businesses is their failure to identify an effective value proposition and communicate it clearly to the correct audience. The ability to communicate your value proposition is especially important if your company is still growing or if you are in a hypercompetitive market.

Align Your Marketing Strategy to Your Customers

All marketing tactics used in your marketing strategy should be tailored to your target audience. When determining how to structure the messages you are trying to convey, consider the following questions.

• What are your customer’s pain points? Motivations? 
• Where are they in the purchase process?
• How will purchasing your product benefit customers? 
• How can your company’s products and services solve their problems?

Focusing your strategy on answering the questions above, rather than just discussing product features, increases interest among your audience. Customers tune out information they believe is not relevant to them, so answering these questions will lead to increased brand awareness and higher conversion rates. 

Include a Plan for Content Marketing in Your Strategy

When it comes to marketing strategy, content marketing is key. Harnessing the power of content marketing is essential if you want to stand up to your competition; it allows you to engage your current customers and bring in new customers to your business by showcasing your subject-matter expertise. Here are a few statistics that emphasize the importance of content marketing. 

• 89% of businesses in the B2B space use content marketing. 
• 80% of business decision makers prefer reading articles to get information about a prospective purchase over traditional advertising.
• 70% of B2B purchasers say that the content they encounter helps them feel closer to the sponsoring company. 
• 63% of companies believe that posting regularly on social media increased the effectiveness of their marketing. 

To successfully utilize content marketing in your marketing strategy, a variety of platforms should be considered to ensure a wide reach. All content created should have a consistent overall message to maintain a strong brand identity. Content should be created and distributed on a regular basis to ensure increased visibility and brand awareness. 

Establish Your Marketing Metrics

To determine how successful your marketing strategy is, you need to measure it. Metrics need to be established to measure, track, and analyze each tactic of your strategy. The metrics you plan on using should be determined before content reaches your customers to ensure accurate tracking.

Establishing your metrics during your marketing strategy helps ensure that you have the ability to track your metrics. Having the proper tools to track the success of the various tactics in your marketing strategy helps determine how successful your strategy is in helping the company reach marketing goals. 

Pay Attention and Make Adjustments

After taking the time and effort to develop a marketing strategy, it’s easy to walk away and move onto other pressing business matters. You put in the time and effort to develop a thorough marketing strategy that creates a long-term plan incorporating all marketing efforts for the foreseeable future. There is no need to touch that strategy until there is a major change in the market or in the direction the company is going, right?

Wrong.

To ensure the success of your marketing strategy, due diligenceis needed throughout the entire marketing process to ensure that any mistakes are identified as soon as possible. Mistakes may be recognized through feedback from your target audience or through analyzing metrics and key performance indicators. Once mistakes are recognized, it may be necessary to go back to the drawing board and fine-tune your strategy.

Continuously monitoringall aspects of your marketing strategy ensures the success of your strategy. Even if no mistakes are identified, your strategy should be tuned-up periodically to ensure it reflects the current market. This may seem like a tedious process, but it helps ensure that your marketing efforts will be successful in helping your company reach all predefined goals.