No matter what business you’re in, implementing a strategic marketing plan can boost your sales, drive your website traffic, or grow your brand’s social media presence. Without a strategic marketing plan, all your marketing efforts (and money) are spent hoping for a marketing win while you miss opportunities for consistent growth and leave your brand subject to threats that can damage your image.

 Your brand isn’t the same as it was a year ago and your marketing plan should grow and evolve with your business. If you’re ready for a refresh, here are the first steps to developing a strategic marketing plan:

While your current marketing plan may be working just fine, there’s always room for improvement. Get objective about your marketing situation, even if that means being critical of your own work.

If you’re struggling to analyze your marketing objectively, try making a list of your brand’s:

Strengths: How is your marketing successful?
Weaknesses: Where is your marketing not getting results?
Opportunities: What opportunities can your brand take advantage of?
Threats: What outside influences may hurt your brand?

Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your brand while opportunities and threats are external. Understanding your current marketing situation will help you move forward with a strategy.

Your goal should focus on your weaknesses or address an upcoming opportunity or threat and have a great impact on your brand. Your goals will drive all your marketing efforts and give each step of your marketing plan a concrete purpose, so make sure you set a goal that’s:

Specific
Measurable
Realistic
Time-bound

For example: Increase our website conversion rate from 13% to 17% within the next 6 months.

Not: Get more followers on Instagram.

Market research is an opportunity to learn more about your audience, your competitors, and the trends that can affect your brand’s success. Tailor your market research to your goals — use it to find what type of content, products, or information is most and least successful amongst your target audience. Then, you can use that data to influence your marketing strategy.

Now that you have a specific goal, an understanding of your current marketing plan, and data from your market research, you’re ready to develop a strategic marketing tactic.

Developing a smart, effective, and budget-friendly marketing tactic can be overwhelming. Depending on your goals, your tactic may mean focusing on a new audience, exploring a new topic, or rebranding your business altogether. Your new marketing plan should include specific actions you’ll take, a timeline, and a budget.

Executing a marketing plan is no easy task and the more help you have, the better. Including your team in your marketing strategy will lead to more ideas, more content, and more confidence in your brand’s future. Your coworkers are your greatest brand ambassadors so their buy-in to your brand and your goals is essential for success.

Strategic marketing is a continuous process that requires consistent effort.

The job isn’t done with a website refresh, new social media content, or a catchy new advertisement. For long-term success and brand growth, you need to track your data and monitor your feedback, all while continuously adjusting your marketing plan based on the information you receive.

If all of this sounds like too much to handle on your own, it might be time to ask for help. Hoyden offers project-based, month-to-month, and consulting services to help you develop and implement a personalized marketing strategy based on your brand, your goals, and your budget. 

You’re Stuck In the Mud

When a business becomes stagnant, it may be time to call in a marketing pro. Sure, whatever you’ve done for marketing in the past may have worked for you. You might have even seen steady growth in sales based on doing things the way you always have. But what happens when your growth hits a plateau? You may have a great group of regular clients or customers but still are finding it hard to reach even more people.

A marketing strategy expert can help you advance your business and find a way to reach a whole new group of people.

You’re Tapped Out of Ideas

When you first launch your business, you are full of enthusiasm and excitement, and you have a plethora of ideas for how to get your message out into the world. But once you’ve been open for a few years, some of those ideas may become stale. Or new trends emerge that you don’t know how to tap into in a way that works best for your business.

A marketing strategy expert will be able to view your business with a fresh set of eyes and find a way to bring their unique perspective to your potential customers.

There’s Just No Time

Running a business is more than a full-time job. It often takes up most of your waking hours. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the everyday tasks of making things work and keeping your customers happy. But, doing things like social media and marketing is often put on hold, even if you know that it’s very important.

An organization that neglects its PR and marketing will see very little growth, if any. A marketing strategy specialist is the best way to delegate a very important part of your operations while you can focus on the tasks you do best. It’s a win-win decision.

Less Marketing Experience, More Problems

You may have someone on your team who can make you a nice-looking website or social media account, but that is no match for having someone in your corner with extensive marketing experience to bring your business to the next level.

A marketing expert will help you figure out:

• How people see your business
• Why people chose you
• Why some people did not choose you
• What the latest marketing trends are
• What marketing trends no longer work
• Where you might be able to find new clients
• What your competitors and others in your industry are doing

Most importantly, a marketing strategy consultant will help you build the best plan catered to your business.

You’ve Tried All the Things

When a business opens, it’s easy to throw your marketing strategy in hopes of drawing in as many potential customers as possible. Many create social media accounts on every platform, place advertising in several venues, and try several different things on their website. You do get business from these efforts, but which ones are working? Which ones aren’t?

A marketing strategy specialist will help you narrow down your plan so that you are investing your time and money in a way that will bring in the most business.

Marketing is an Afterthought

Look, we’ve all been to those Facebook pages or Twitter feeds of businesses that haven’t posted in months, even years. Or worse yet, websites with events or blog posts from five years ago. These kinds of things beg the question in our customers – is this business even open? Do they have time to provide me with the kind of service that I need?

Outdated content looks unprofessional. With someone on your team who makes sure you have fresh and evergreen content; this will not happen. Your marketing strategy specialist will make sure your customers know exactly what to expect from you when they check out your online presence.

You Need the Money!

It may sound strange to say that spending money to hire a marketing strategy specialist helps with your lack of budget for marketing but hear us out.

Here are some ways that it can help you save money in your pocketbook:

• By outsourcing your marketing, you are paying for their specific service and don’t have to pay other fees that would come with having an in-house marketing team, such as full-time salary and benefits. With an outsourced marketing team, you negotiate by hours or project, which makes it much easier to work into your budget.
• A marketing strategy specialist will help you target the best strategies that will get you the most bang for your buck. You won’t be throwing money at advertising that does not work.
• The endgame of every marketing professional is to bring you more business. And more business means more money in your pocket. Sometimes, even though your budget may be tight, you can’t afford to not invest in your marketing.

Luckily, we can assist with this! Our team of experienced marketing and brand strategy specialist is here to help grow your business and maximize your success.