One of the most brilliant ways of engaging with existing and potential clientele, marketing is a great way to help businesses grow and maintain goodwill in the business market. In an evolving economy, the importance of staying relevant is of paramount importance and streamlining services or products as per the current demand is the need of the hour. A marketing team plays a crucial role in an organisation’s success as it helps the management to make clear decisions and drive higher revenues.
How is strategic marketing different from marketing?
While marketing is a broader initiative to drive sales and build visibility, the emergence of strategic marketing has been instrumental in addressing high lead generation, better ROI and overcoming business challenges. With the evolving market, business environment and dynamics, earning a Master’s in Strategic Marketing is an ideal option.
The thumb rule of strategic marketing is to:
- Recognizing target audience
It is important to identify and analyse the target audience by establishing what kind of information they seek. Whether it is a new start-up or a software organisation, it is imperative to determine how your product or service will fulfil a gap or solve a problem in the market. Hence, audience identification and in-depth analysis will add a strategic touch to your marketing plan because that would help achieve high ROI.
- Analysing the competition
One of the key differentiators between strategic and non-strategic marketing is performing a thorough competitive analysis to sharpen your own business approach and strategy.
A comprehensive competitor analysis involves identifying how the competitors are spending their marketing budget, identifying areas where they have made progress and their clientele portfolio. Another aspect would be to draw a conclusion if you are aiming to match their progress or have larger plans for advancement.
- Opportunity analysis
Another important aspect of strategic marketing is goal-setting and performing opportunity analysis while looking ahead to expand business or introduce a new line of products. Strategic marketing would involve recognizing the biggest profit opportunity, identifying skillsets and devising action plan to turn these opportunities into beneficial ventures.
- Brand positioning
While traditional marketing involves producing an assortment of quality communications, strategic marketing offers it direction through being extremely target audience oriented. Some of the points that come into focus are –
Being cognizant of the current message the company is sending out in the market and how was it made to happen in the first place.
Identifying the messaging that clicked with your clientele and brought them to your business instead of the competitors.
Hence, it is important to prepare a strategic plan of action for your marketing activities and tactics to drive higher profits and lead conversion.
