Marketing comes in many styles and flavors, most of which are defined as tactics. Examples include all forms of advertising (online and offline), newsletters, networking events, trade shows, search engine optimization (SEO), social media platforms, etc.

All of these tactics can be very effective in growing your business, but only if there is a solid strategic foundation. Otherwise, you will have a tendency to chase after the shiny object of the week – whatever the buzz meisters are talking about. How do you avoid that? Two words – Marketing Strategy.

Unfortunately, developing a marketing strategy is hard work and takes time. The majority of business owners are spending all of their time working “in” their business and not “on” their business. One big reason for not spending the time to develop a marketing strategy is not understanding the benefits. Here are 5 benefits that will help you.

Marketing Strategy Benefits

Greatly Improved Focus 

When you are able to identify and profile your very best customers you can then focus on attracting more of them through your marketing tactics. Most business owners don’t want to miss any opportunities and end up chasing after a number of bad deals and prospects, wasting valuable time and resources. When you spend the time to create profiles of your best customersthen you will stay focused on spending your time and money on those prospects with the potential for the best return.

Out-flanking Your Competition 

With knowledge gained from identifying your best customer profile you can create a core marketing message that will differentiate you from your competition. Have you ever noticed how similar the home page on websites are? Have you compared the first paragraph or two from your home page with your competitors?

Try this exercise: cut and paste the first paragraph or two from your website and from your competitors into a word doc. Make sure you black out any reference to company name. Now show it to your employees or others who know your business, and ask them to identify the companies. Chances are they can’t. Which leads to the question – how can your website visitors know what makes you better? 

Once you create a marketing message that truly speaks to your customers in their language, not your industry jargon, then you can put some real distance between you and your competitors.

Give Prospects What They Want 

Once you have done the first two steps in developing your marketing strategy you are ready to create content which educates your prospects. They aren’t coming to your website to read how great you are, they are looking to solve a problem. If you don’t indicate you can do that in the first few seconds they are on your site they will leave. With a great marketing strategy you can begin to deliver content online and offline which engages your prospects and educates them on the solutions you offer.

Make It Easy For Them to Find You 

We call it a Total Web Presence. Your website is your hub and all of your marketing tactics are designed to direct your prospects to your educational hub. That includes offline as well as online. A great marketing strategy will help you identify where you prospects “hang out” and that enables you to put out “bread crumbs” of content which redirect them to your website. If you’ve done #3 well you will have compelling content and free offers to further engage them once they get to your site.

More Highly Qualified Leads 

Not necessarily a higher quantity of leads, but more highly qualified leads. This is the payoff for all of your hard work, which actually means you won’t have to work as hard to close the deal. Keep in mind that a contact is not a lead, it’s only a contact. A lead is someone who knows, likes, and trusts you already because of your great job implementing and executing your marketing strategy.
Want to know more about how this can work for your business? Scroll back up to the top of this page and look for the box on the right for our Free Business Marketing Success Report. Fill that out and you will immediately get a copy of our 7 Steps to Business Marketing Success which will give you more details on what I outlined above.  You will also be subscribed for our SMART (Savvy Meaningful Articles Resources and Tips) Marketing Ezine which we publish monthly.