Marketing is an essential component of any business, but often a component overlooked. Often businesses, especially startups, need assistance with reframing how they approach the challenge of marketing their business. In this blog post, we’ll delve into some key considerations and explore the nuances of marketing, from building relationships with stakeholders to crafting a strategic marketing plan.
Building Relationships with Stakeholders: Marketing goes beyond customer acquisition and encompasses forming relationships with both external and internal stakeholders. While potential and existing customers are crucial, it’s equally important to consider the needs and interests of staff, board members, and investors. Recognising the value of each interaction, including those with prospective and current clients, is integral to successful marketing.
Reframing Marketing Perspectives: To illustrate the essence of marketing, the presentation used the analogy of a circus coming to town. Each step in the process, such as advertising, promotions, publicity, PR and sales all contribute to the overall marketing effort. Your marketing strategy is how you plan to use all of these tools and tactics to achieve your goals.
Tools and Tactics: It’s vital not to get overwhelmed by the multitude of marketing tools and tactics available. While tactics are the means by which goals are achieved (e.g., SEO, social media, PPC), marketing itself should focus on the overarching strategy for success. The analogy of a house construction project clarifies this relationship: marketing is the blueprint, while tactics are the bricks and mortar.
Understanding the Market Landscape: Attempting to replicate the strategies of established players in the market is a common but potentially disastrous approach for small business. These established companies focus on brand building and awareness to maintain their market share. As an SME, it’s important to adopt a different game plan—direct response marketing. This approach aims to elicit an immediate response from the target audience and focuses on building relationships and turning prospects into customers.
Building a Marketing Strategy: Developing a robust marketing strategy is crucial for success. Pareto’s Law, also known as the 80/20 rule, emphasises that 20% of actions generate 80% of results. Applying this principle to marketing suggests that identifying the most effective actions is essential. Similar to a boxing match, where strategic jabs and movements position the opponent for a knockout blow, marketing requires consistent content and touch points to create the right conditions for a successful outcome.
Marketing is a multifaceted discipline that extends beyond customer acquisition. It involves building relationships with stakeholders, reframing perspectives, selecting appropriate tools and tactics, understanding the market landscape, and constructing a well-defined marketing strategy. By leveraging the insights from this blog, Startups and SMEs can approach marketing with clarity and purpose, setting the stage for growth and success in a competitive landscape.