Written by Christopher Melotti
Marketing Strategy.
It’s an essential business 101.
Business growth NEEDS marketing. It’s simple: to advance your business, you need more customers to be aware of you and make a decision to choose you above the competitors. All of these require marketing; or more specifically, marketing strategy.
“But Chris… isn’t this just more meetings and admin to create a document that no one cares about? Can’t marketing just be instinct?”
No no no!!! I know it’s tempting… but no.
Marketing Strategy is the lifeblood of any business today. Without a strong marketing compass, a company will die – it’s just the truth.
I get that you may hate all the process and paperwork, but your future self will thank you, and your future profits will reflect that!
“Chris, I just come up with marketing strategies on the fly. I go with my gut!”
Marketing instincts are all well and good, but not everyone in your team will work like this and besides – it isn’t much of a guarantee. It’s best to do marketing strategy right.
A solid Marketing Strategy is put together in a company document. Yes, that all sounds important for any Australian business (because it is). Everyone talks about it and it’s certainly a buzzword in all business circles.
But that doesn’t make marketing strategy any easier to approach.
How does a business develop a marketing strategy?!
I get it! I studied marketing and I’ve been in the profession of marketing for over two decades yet, due to the complex nature and bespoke need of each organisation, it can really vary.
Ok, so let’s talk all about Marketing Strategy Development and what it involves.
- What is a Marketing Strategy?
- Why A Marketing Strategic Plan is Crucial for Australian Businesses
- Starting Marketing Strategy from your Business Goals
- Setting SMART Marketing Objectives
- Your Marketing Strategy is an answer to those Goals and Objectives
- Assessing Your Business’ Current Marketing Health
- Understanding Your Target Audience
- Data-Driven decision making in Marketing
- Developing a Strong Brand Identity
- Content Marketing Strategy: Sharing Your Brand’s Story
- Creating a Marketing Plan: Marketing Tactics, Channels and Timing
- Budgeting, Measuring and Analysing Your Marketing Strategy
- Adapting and Scaling Your Marketing Strategy
- Marketing Strategy Development: Next Steps
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher Melotti Brand Comms Strategist, Marketing Advisor & Message Marketer Founder of Melotti Media
Christopher Melotti is a well-established and renowned Australian Marketing Professional who lives by the motto, “Continually challenge, consistently grow, constantly humbled, confidently show.”
Christopher founded, manages and is the Creative Director of Melotti Media Copywriting and Message Marketing Bureau, where he and his team work with a wide range of clients from Government, Medical and Education, to Marketing, Legal Firms, Finance and more.
Chris’ goal is not just to articulate brands and mastermind messaging strategy, but to demonstrate the potential that clear, consistent communications offer businesses. Everything Melotti Media does is about evolving marketing practise by providing superior, relevant value (entertainment and education) through proactive action.
Christopher Melotti is also a highly-sought Business Advisor and Marketing Consultant.
Christopher has won many prestigious awards for his work, the most notable being the Australian Business Champion’s Copywriting Business Of The Year 2022, Australian Achiever Awards 2021 National Winner for Marketing Services and the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of the Year award in 2017 (Australian Marketing Institute), and teaches a range of professional business marketing classes across Australia.
Chapter 1: What is a Marketing Strategy?
A Marketing Strategy is the ideation, development and execution of a well-thought-out approach or business response to a particular scenario in the market.
So, if a business faces a specific situation, like a product launch, or challenge, like a new competitor, then a marketing strategy is the way marketing will be used to address this.
Who comes up with a Marketing Strategy?
Marketing Specialists and Marketing Consultants develop marketing strategies, as developing a marketing strategy requires innovative creativity, problem-solving and high situational awareness – all very high-level skills.
Smart people! I know, right? But that’s not a cop-out or silly answer – hear me out!
So much rides on marketing strategies to get businesses through situations, and so, you need an experienced marketing strategist to carefully think through scenarios to find the right path forward.
What is an example of a simple Marketing Strategy?
Just to give you an idea, here are some typical examples of simple marketing strategies.
- Marketing Objective: Raise Brand Awareness by 5% in the local market.
- Marketing Strategy: Execute top-of-the-funnel branded content marketing to capture attention and make customers problem-aware.
- Business Challenge: A new competitor has encroached on your physical territory.
- Marketing Strategy: Run defensive marketing promotions to increase loyalty within the local community
- Business Goal: Expand the service offering into a new sector.
- Marketing Strategy: Run a 6-month launch campaign that educates the new target audience and prepares for the roll-out date.
Sure, these are very generic, but nevertheless, they demonstrate a strategic marketing action in response to a goal or scenario. These are ‘short-term’ and ad hoc marketing strategies.
Typically, a forward-thinking company puts together a Marketing Strategy Document that is a more thorough blueprint. This is a smarter way of approaching marketing strategy.
What is a Marketing Strategy Document?
A Marketing Strategy document is a written-down framework that defines how an organisation conducts its Marketing, based on the pursuit of its business goals and Marketing objectives.
See how I said it’s based on business goals and Marketing objectives?
These serve as a foundation for your marketing strategy. You can’t simply copy a template or someone else’s marketing strategy as their goals are completely different to yours.
A generic Marketing Strategy document also doesn’t work as it doesn’t take into account the specifics of your situation!
The components of a marketing strategy document
When you develop a Marketing Strategy Document, it usually follows the following structure:
- Business Overview: outlining everything that defines the business.
- Market Analysis: detailed research into everything about the current environment, including competitors, customers, trends and more.
- Situational Analysis: an internal reflection into the current state of the business, including strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Goals and Objectives: here is where you give the marketing strategy a North Star. These are specific and measurable targets.
- Target Customers: defining who are your ideal segments and why.
- Marketing Tactics: detailed plans across Marketing’s 8 Ps to reach the target audience and achieve the marketing objectives.
- Budgeting: a breakdown of the funds allocated to each marketing activity, expected expenses and return on investment (ROI).
- Action Plan: a calendar of all marketing campaigns and events according to the marketing tactics above, spanning a specific timeframe.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): metrics to measure how effective each tactic is.
- Management: the plan to measure and manage the marketing strategy to keep it agile.
How do I build a Marketing Strategy Document?
To develop a successful marketing strategy document, I always recommend getting your key decision makers and department heads to come together and progress through the above 10 steps.
That way, everyone has buy-in and can contribute to all of the parts of your marketing strategy.
What does a Marketing Strategy Document look like?
A marketing strategy document should only be a few pages long and provide an overview of all of those strategic marketing aspects above.
Your strategic marketing plan should then be a “live document” that’s available and within reach of everyone. Why? Because a powerful marketing strategy document is the only one where everyone in the business can refer to and update it accordingly.
What good is a marketing strategy if no one looks at it?!
- What is a Marketing Strategy?
- Why A Marketing Strategic Plan is Crucial for Australian Businesses
- Starting Marketing Strategy from your Business Goals
- Setting SMART Marketing Objectives
- Your Marketing Strategy is an answer to those Goals and Objectives
- Assessing Your Business’ Current Marketing Health
- Understanding Your Target Audience
- Data-Driven decision making in Marketing
- Developing a Strong Brand Identity
- Content Marketing Strategy: Sharing Your Brand’s Story
- Creating a Marketing Plan: Marketing Tactics, Channels and Timing
- Budgeting, Measuring and Analysing Your Marketing Strategy
- Adapting and Scaling Your Marketing Strategy
- Marketing Strategy Development: Next Steps
Chapter 2: Why A Marketing Strategic Plan is Crucial for Australian Businesses
Every business MUST have a Marketing Strategy as marketing is ineffective if you are guessing your way through.
Today, there are:
- too many forms of marketing
- too many channels, and
- too many competitors
for any organisation to be trying marketing with no strategic business approach.
I mentioned this above: if a business doesn’t do marketing, it dies.
Likewise:
if your business doesn’t take the time to build a well-thought-out marketing strategy, you’ll end up wasting money and time: two precious resources that will cost you dearly.
Sure, you may get a win here and there – but you’re firing in all different directions to get that little win.
Trust me!
My first-hand experience: the importance of a strategic marketing plan
When I first started Melotti Media, my Content Copywriting Agency, this was the approach I tried in the initial years. I was guessing my way through things every month.
Yep, it had a decent success rate as I was jumping on every “new shiny thing” and persistence allowed me to gain some traction. However, I was being inefficient and ineffective with my marketing.
This was costing me a lot of money.
“Let’s try this.” “Oh, I just thought of this!” “Let’s ditch that now. I want to try this.”
My team were getting frustrated, and the results were so random. It made marketing really hard.
In this situation, there were no proper business goals, brand direction and structured marketing definition to drive my efforts. Once I formalised my business goals and then built my marketing strategy on measurable outcomes that meant something, marketing became much easier.
Chapter 3: Starting Marketing Strategy from your Business Goals
Want to know why Marketing Strategy is so hard?
Because it has to be built upon business goals that are entirely unique for each.
There’s no textbook about what exact marketing strategy will work in each scenario.
That’s impossible but also demonstrates the importance of what an experienced Marketing Consultant brings to the table here.
Back to the point: never ever start a marketing strategy without first defining your business goals.
What are business goals?
Business goals are the measurable visions and relevant objectives that a business wants to achieve by a particular timeframe. Typically, there are no more than 3 to 6 business goals a year.
They aren’t to be confused with Marketing Objectives which I cover in the next chapter. A business goal is overarching and very high-level. These goals move the whole business and aim to progress it forward on an intended trajectory.
As a Marketing Advisor, I’ve worked with so many businesses, so I’ve seen them all.
Some examples of business goals
Just to give you an idea, here are some typical examples of simple business goals.
- Hire 2 additional Sales Professionals in 6 months
- Establish a secondary business to cater to the premium market in 2029
- Evolve in 10 years to shift 80% of the revenue stream into a new area
- Acquire a complementary SMB business to expand
- Grow profitability by 3% in 18 months.
First, come the business goals like this. Next…
Chapter 4: Setting SMART Marketing Objectives
After you’ve set your business goals, next, you need to set your Marketing Objectives from these.
Why?
Because your Marketing Objectives need to be moulded off the business goals.
What are Marketing Objectives?
Marketing Objectives are how the Marketing Function of a business will support the successful achievement of the business’ overarching goals.
From these goals and objectives, marketing strategies can be built.
Think of it this way: the business goals are set by the captain to direct the destination of the ship. Your marketing objectives are how the crew sets their targets and tasks to ensure the ship gets there as intended.
Example of Marketing Objectives
Take a few of the business goal examples above. Here are some corresponding marketing objectives that will support their achievement.
- Business Goal: Hire 2 additional Sales Professionals in 6 months
- Marketing Objective: Increase awareness of positive company culture to attract high-calibre talent
- Marketing Strategy: Seek professional copywriters to craft our “About Us” page and organise recruitment advert copywriters.
- Business Goal: Establish a secondary business to cater to the premium market in 2029
- Marketing Objective: Create a whole new brand targeted at the new premium market.
- Marketing Strategy: Build a full brand strategy and suite, including logo, fonts, colours and brand core messaging.
Keep in mind – this is a very simplified example of marketing strategy development based on business goals and marketing objectives, but you get the point.
If you want your company’s marketing strategy document to have value, it all needs to start with a foundation of relevant business goals and marketing objectives.
Without these, you’re shooting in the dark!
SMART Marketing Objectives
What types of Marketing Objectives do you need to set for a marketing strategy? Great question.
They need to be “SMART”. No, that’s not just saying they’re smart. SMART is an acronym for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Timely
I absolutely love the business goal-setting model, SMART, as every goal should be all of these.
If they’re not relevant and attainable, with specific details, a measurable quality and spanning a timeframe, then it’s very hard for them to get a goal you can target successfully.
An example of a SMART Marketing Objective
Take the example I gave above.
- Marketing Objective: Create a whole new brand targeted at the new premium market.
Let’s transform it into a SMART Marketing Objective.
- SMART Marketing Objective Create a whole new brand targeted at the new premium market.
S: Create an entire brand suite with all logos, colours and messaging.
M: Tick off all 10 basic elements of a brand
A: This is very achievable in the timeframe set
R: This is highly relevant to the business goal
T: 12-months for full completion and launch
- What is a Marketing Strategy?
- Why A Marketing Strategic Plan is Crucial for Australian Businesses
- Starting Marketing Strategy from your Business Goals
- Setting SMART Marketing Objectives
- Your Marketing Strategy is an answer to those Goals and Objectives
- Assessing Your Business’ Current Marketing Health
- Understanding Your Target Audience
- Data-Driven decision making in Marketing
- Developing a Strong Brand Identity
- Content Marketing Strategy: Sharing Your Brand’s Story
- Creating a Marketing Plan: Marketing Tactics, Channels and Timing
- Budgeting, Measuring and Analysing Your Marketing Strategy
- Adapting and Scaling Your Marketing Strategy
- Marketing Strategy Development: Next Steps
Chapter 5: Your Marketing Strategy is an answer to those Goals and Objectives
With these kinds of detailed business goals and marketing objectives, you’re now ready to develop a strong marketing strategy document.
Never start a marketing strategy without the framework of goals first.
Goals are the target and your Marketing Strategy is the gun and bullet.
From this foundation, the next steps of developing a marketing strategy involve building a roadmap on how to achieve them – this is the fun and creative part!
Chapter 6: Assessing Your Business' Current Marketing Health
Before you set off on a journey, you must look at where you are first.
Why? By knowing your current situation and comparing that to your goals, you can identify the gaps and set your strategy to close them.
That’s the very point of a Marketing Strategy Document after all!
So, let’s take a good look into your organisation’s current marketing health.
Quiz: 20 Questions to Assess Your Business’ Marketing Health
Let’s check your current marketing hygiene! (strange terminology, but you get it).
When assessing your company’s marketing health, it’s important to ask questions that cover the whole range of areas, including strategy, execution, results, and adaptability.
Here are some powerful questions to help you evaluate where you are currently:
- Marketing Strategy and Goals:
- Do your marketing objectives support your business goals?
- How do your marketing strategies align with the overall business goals?
- Target Audience and Market Understanding:
3. Who is your target audience and how has this been determined? including strategy, execution, results, and adaptability.
4. What research do you conduct to understand your market and competitors?
- Content and Messaging:
5. What is your core marketing message, and how do you ensure it resonates with your target audience?
6. How do you keep your content fresh and engaging for your audience?
- Digital Presence and Social Media:
7. How do you use your website and social media for marketing?
8. What metrics do you use to measure the effectiveness of your digital presence?
- Advertising and Promotions:
9. What advertising channels are you currently using, and how do you determine their effectiveness?
10. How do you measure the ROI of your promotional activities?
- Customer Engagement and Feedback:
11. How do you engage with your customers and gather feedback?
12. What strategies do you have for customer retention and loyalty?
- Sales and Marketing Alignment:
13. How is your marketing team aligned with the sales department?
14. How do marketing efforts translate into sales performance?
- Innovation and Adaptability:
14. How do you stay current with marketing trends and technological advancements?
15. How quickly can your marketing strategy adapt to changes in the market
or consumer behaviour?
- Budget and Resource Allocation:
17. How is your marketing budget allocated across various channels and initiatives?
18. Do you feel that you have adequate resources to achieve your marketing objectives?
- Analytics and Data-Driven Decision-Making:
18. What tools and methods do you use for marketing analytics?
19. How do data insights influence your marketing decisions and strategy adjustments?
Some real head-scratchers there, but REALLY worth taking the time to at least contemplate.
“I don’t know how to answer these marketing questions!”
I get it, and you’re not alone.
As a Marketing Consultant, I’ve worked with so many businesses where their answer to some of these was, “I’m not sure.”
I always say back, “think of this as an opportunity to find out!”
For instance:
- if you’re not sure about what your budget it for each channel, then find out or set one. You’ll be surprised how much easier it is to measure your success or monitor your spending.
- if you’ve never really thought about your brand’s social media before, now’s the time to put together a social media plan and create a content marketing calendar.
The one thing I will say here is:
If you can’t answer any of the questions to assess your current marketing health, then stop and do this first before you create your marketing strategy.
You can’t build a roadmap forward if you don’t know where you are to begin with. Think about that!
Chapter 7: Understanding Your Target Audience
Some of the best advice I can give you as a Marketing Consultant is this.
Your Marketing Strategy will be far more effective if you focus on a specific niche.
Read that again. I’m not kidding.
Mass marketing really is a thing of the past, especially for the majority of organisations today.
So many companies initially try to target “everyone”, and nothing hamstrings success like this. There are too many competitors out there and too much noise. Just differentiating your product, service or platform is a given today – you need to go further than this.
If you really want your brand to stand out, it’s about getting clear on your niche and the corresponding audience you want to target.
How do I niche my business?
Deciding on your business niche or your customer niche is a bit of the chicken or the egg situation here. It can be product first or customer first. Here are some examples.
I’ve worked with education facilities that have started with customer first, where they’ve spotted the gap in the market.
- Niche Customer: Business Executives in their 50ies looking to study
- Niche Product Response: Digital-first short courses online with extended timeframes.
Then, I’ve worked with legal firms that have started with their service first.
- Niche Service: Wills and Estates for Australian High Net-Worth Individuals
- Niche Customer Response: People with family wealth over 40.
This is very simplified, but the factor in common is that your niche product, service or platform must be highly relevant to your niche audience.
That’s why it’s a really smart idea to define your target audience. The more you know them, the easier it is to build a marketing strategy for them!
How do I define my target audience?
Your target audience should be the segments of potential customers that are linked by a common attribute that makes them ideal for your product, service or platform, such as gender or lifestyle.
You can then define your audience into groups called “personas”, to help you focus your marketing on them.
Verify your target audience with research
When defining your audience, don’t forget to conduct research to verify your assumptions are correct.
You can gather focus groups, conduct first-hand surveys, digital polls or research from secondary sources.
Nothing can send you off course faster than misunderstanding the attributes or validity of your target audience!
Imagine building a marketing strategy on a set of guesses. You could be investing and executing marketing tactics on a completely fictitious group. Disaster!
An example of a target audience persona
Here’s a very simplistic persona to give you an example.
“Growth Gary” is a 45-year-old professional eCommerce business owner who has progressed past the start-up phase and is now looking for a reliable shipping supplier that they can depend upon to manage all of their orders automatically from their website.
Growth Gary is time-poor and while he will invest when he recognises good service, he is still price-sensitive because he is still growing his business. Gary is aiming to become a mature business in 5 years and is seeking a solution to help him get there.
While this is just a general target audience persona, see how defining it allows you to really visualise the person? This really helps you create an effective marketing strategy targeting those segments.
Just don’t forget the fundamentals: make your product, service or platform solve a relevant problem for your audience.
Chapter 8: Data-Driven Decision-Making in Marketing
I remember when I first started studying marketing at University back in 2007, data and measuring really wasn’t emphasised. We just went with instinct and tried to fail with huge risks.
Not anymore.
Today, Marketing and Data go hand-in-hand. In today’s digital world, most (if not all) of your marketing can be tracked and this data needs to be used in all of your marketing strategies today.
Why use data in marketing?
Data in marketing is used for one main reason: to make highly informed marketing decisions.
As an example, if you’re creating a website which includes a HOME page and a Landing Page, you should use data from, say Google Analytics and other online visitor tracking tools to:
- Tweak your website copywriting to resonate more with online visitors
- Redesign your website’s UX design to help people find things faster
- Update your website’s load speed for a better experience
When you have actual first-hand data, you can make logical choices based on customer behaviour. An effective marketing strategy needs to be based on real insights from data to make informed decisions.
This means you’re not guessing your next marketing move – smart!
How do I collect data for Marketing decisions?
Fortunately today, we’re living in a world where digital tools and technology make gathering and processing data easier than ever.
Don’t overcomplicate things. Start with simple tools like Google Analytics for your website as this gives you heaps of insights. Most marketing platforms like MailChimp, HubSpot and Dripify also include data dashboards so that Marketing Professionals can see everything easily.
Just remember, having data is one thing. Being able to interpret it to make marketing decisions is another – that takes practise and skill.
That’s where a Marketing Consultant can help you devise a marketing strategy based on your data.
How does data-driven decision-making affect Marketing Strategy?
The insights you pull together from everything you do will help you make critical improvements across all of your marketing strategies.
In an ideal world, you will have data-backed market insights that help you shape your Marketing Strategy Document, and then, as you roll out your marketing tactics, you have live data to make updates, changes and amends.
Decisions should never be based on instinct alone.
Trust me: I’m ALL FOR “marketing gut feelings”, but you can’t steer a company by that alone. You need to be making decisions based on what you’re seeing out there in the market and responding accordingly.
- What is a Marketing Strategy?
- Why A Marketing Strategic Plan is Crucial for Australian Businesses
- Starting Marketing Strategy from your Business Goals
- Setting SMART Marketing Objectives
- Your Marketing Strategy is an answer to those Goals and Objectives
- Assessing Your Business’ Current Marketing Health
- Understanding Your Target Audience
- Data-Driven decision making in Marketing
- Developing a Strong Brand Identity
- Content Marketing Strategy: Sharing Your Brand’s Story
- Creating a Marketing Plan: Marketing Tactics, Channels and Timing
- Budgeting, Measuring and Analysing Your Marketing Strategy
- Adapting and Scaling Your Marketing Strategy
- Marketing Strategy Development: Next Steps
Chapter 9: Developing a Strong Brand Identity
Every brand has a unique set of characteristics that make up its own identity.
Whether you’re aware of it or not doesn’t matter; it exists whether you take control of it, or you let it form organically.
A brand identity determines how your brand is perceived by your audience – and you want to be proactive if you want to take control of this narrative.
What is a brand identity?
Just like one of your friend’s identities, your brand’s identity is the overall representation of your company which contributes to how your customers perceive you. A brand identity forms from all of the interactions and cues that audiences get from your marketing.
Try this exercise.
- Think of all the brands you know: Nike, Mercedes Benz, IKEA, Coca-Cola.
- Now think about the feeling you immediately got when thinking of each.
That’s a brand identity.
Why is a strong brand identity important?
People will choose your product, service or platform based on what they think of your brand.
- If they trust your brand, they will go ahead.
- If they dislike your brand, they will avoid you (and tell everyone!)
- If they’re indifferent or unaware, they won’t take action.
For this reason, your brand’s identity needs to be strategically defined, clear and consistent throughout all your marketing, or else you risk blending in with your competition or being forgotten altogether.
So, how can you ensure that your brand’s identity is effective in helping you to rise above the noise and stand out, while still remaining a true reflection of your organisation’s values and ideals?
That’s where you need to be strategically deliberate about Brand Identity Development.
Let’s discuss how you can create a captivating brand identity of your own as part of your Marketing Strategy Document.
How does a brand identity work?
Your brand’s identity is so much more than just a logo or a tagline.
It’s the total of all components of your brand, including the:
- messaging
- tone of voice
- naming
- logos
- colours
- fonts
- imagery and more.
All of these branding elements are used together to communicate the values that define your organisation.
When people interact with your brand, they get a sense of identity from this – that’s how brand identity works.
If you’re unaware of what your brand identity says, then ask a Marketing Consultant to do a brand audit for you. Then you can develop a brand identity.
What is Brand Identity Development?
Brand Identity Development involves creating an authentic and holistic personality for your organisation to make it more memorable and impressive in the eyes of your audience.
The process of Brand Identity Development focuses on making strategic decisions and updates to your brand components to give your company a more unique expression. This also offers you the opportunity to combine all aspects of your brand into a consistent and connected representation which can in turn be used across all your collateral and marketing channels.
Why do you need to develop an effective Brand Identity?
Your brand’s identity is the medium through which your company demonstrates what it stands for. This makes it a deliberate fusion of communicative, visual and aesthetic elements that captivate your audience to forge a strong emotional connection.
If harnessed correctly, this brand connection will foster trust and a sense of belonging amongst your customers, which then drives greater sales, retention and loyalty over time.
This means that by harmonising your brand messaging, fonts, colours and imagery, your company can establish an effective brand identity that places you in a competitive position in your industry, encouraging your customers to act while also creating a sense of organisational pride.
It’s always best to seek external help to develop your brand identity – it’s very hard to do this with your team alone. A Marketing Consultant can be a great mediator, backed by marketing expertise.
What are the benefits of a strong Brand Identity?
There are several clear benefits that come with developing a more effective brand identity for your organisation. These include:
1. Competitive Advantage
A unique brand identity lets you strategically position your organisation in a crowded market, giving you a competitive edge. It communicates your brand’s distinct value, making it a more appealing choice for customers.
2. Consistency and Cohesion
A profound brand identity establishes uniformity in messaging, marketing and design. This consistency enhances brand cohesion, making it easier to convey exactly what your brand offers your customers.
3. Recognition and Recall
A clear and coherent brand identity ensures your company is instantly recognisable and memorable, making it easier for your customers to recall your offering when making purchasing decisions.
4. Trust and Credibility
A well-crafted brand identity cultivates trust and credibility amongst your customers. It also signals a sense of reliability, which encourages your customers to choose your brand over your competitors.
5. Internal Harmony
A cohesive brand identity creates a sense of belonging and loyalty among employees. This, in turn, can improve team morale and employee productivity to ensure long-term retention and business success.
6. Expansion and Adaptation
Developing a brand identity provides a base from which your brand can adapt to evolving markets and customer preferences. It provides a solid foundation for expansion into new markets or offerings without undermining existing brand equity.
As you can see, there are many benefits of Brand Identity Development to invigorate a sense of authenticity and excitement into your brand.
How to Develop a Brand Identity
Speak to a Marketing Consultant about your brand.
We work with you to dissect your existing brand elements and analyse what is or isn’t working, before meticulously addressing every aspect of your brand to create an overall look and feel that better aligns with your brand’s personality, vision for the future and position in the market.
More often than not, subtle changes and strategic expansions are all that are required to ensure your brand can thrive into the future while maintaining its core identity.
My suggestion is to put together a comprehensive brand guidelines document and make it accessible to everyone in your team.
Every business needs an authentic brand identity to reflect its unique value – otherwise, you’re no different to everyone else and that’s never good.
Chapter 10: Content Marketing: Sharing Your Brand's Story
Now that you’ve built and crystalised your brand’s identity into brand guidelines, you need to get it out into the public so you can build that strong reputation you want with your target audience.
And nothing does this better than content marketing.
Yes, yes – “content” is something you hear every single day in marketing circles, but let’s explain content marketing and its role in executing your Marketing Strategy.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is the strategic production of valuable and customer-relevant pieces of branded content, such as blogs, long-form content, FAQs, case studies, eBooks and website pages, that provide entertainment and information to a target audience.
Essentially, content marketing involves:
- Strategy – devising the approach in accordance with all the above chapters
- Creation – creating the content, which I’ll explain in this chapter
- Channel – deciding which channel is best to reach your audience (next chapter)
- Calendar – planning out when to launch it (next chapter)
- Measure – assessing the results and adapting accordingly (discussed in later chapters).
Types of Marketing Content
To give you an idea of what kinds of marketing content you can produce as part of sharing your brand’s narrative with audiences, here are some examples:
- Blog Posts: Regularly updated articles or news posts on a company’s website that provide insights, tips, insights or updates related to a topic or industry.
- Website Pages: These are an absolute marketing staple. They represent your brand online and combine visuals with text to guide people through your product, services or platform.
- Videos: People love watching videos! They can range from instructional how-to videos, behind-the-scenes glimpses, product demos, or even customer testimonials.
- Infographics: Visual representations of data or information that are intended to be insightful and convenient to understand at a glance.
- E-books: More in-depth than a blog post, an e-book offers comprehensive coverage of a specific topic that can delve into specifics more thoroughly.
- Case Studies: These demonstrate your credibility by sharing detailed stories about how your company helped a customer, highlighting the challenges, solutions and results.
- Email Newsletters: Regularly sent emails that keep subscribers informed about the latest news, tips, or updates from your company.
- White Papers: In-depth reports on a specific topic that present a problem and provide a solution.
- Podcasts: Podcasts are incredibly popular. They’re episodic audio programs discussing various topics that can be listened to while on the move.
- Webinars: Online seminars or presentations, often live, where viewers can learn about a specific topic and interact with the presenter.
- User-Generated Content: Content created by actual customers, such as reviews or social media posts, that can be shared on your company’s platforms.
- Interactive Tools: Online tools, quizzes or calculators that provide personalised results or data for users. People absolutely love these.
- Photo Galleries: Collections of photos related to a company’s products, events, or behind-the-scenes activities.
- Presentations and Slide Decks: these are visual and textual presentations on various topics usually accompanied by a Sales professional or presenter.
- FAQs: A list of frequently asked questions and their answers, providing valuable information to customers and helping with SEO.
- Printed Collateral: These are the brochures and pamphlets that you produce to give to people, so they have something to take away and learn about your brand.
Each of these types of content pieces serve a different purpose in a content marketing strategy, from educating potential customers to nurturing existing relationships. It all comes down to what you need to create, for whom and when.
Just remember: every single piece of content marketing produced should be in compliance with your brand identity that we established in the previous chapter.
Why should you produce branded content?
The rationale behind content marketing is that you’re making your brand available to more people in the market. Content allows you to reach people on their terms, when and where they need it, by presenting solutions to their relevant challenges.
This is very attractive because, when done right, content marketing doesn’t interrupt what people are interested in – it’s all about earning their valuable attention by being what they’re interested in.
Content marketing doesn’t interrupt what people are interested in – it’s all about earning attention by being what they’re interested in.
With the use of content marketing, you’ll be able to answer your target audience’s questions and communicate to them that you have the relevant solution to their pain points. If you’re distributing quality content, it will inspire them to take action, and this is a win/win for the customer and the business alike.
Quality marketing content inspires people to take action, and this is a win/win for the customer and your business alike.
No matter what type of content marketing, all of them should aim to attract, educate and entertain customers so they can build a relationship with your brand and trust your business.
Content marketing is focused on your target customer
Content marketing is utterly customer-centric because its goal is to create a long-term, beneficial relationship with your target audiences by sharing relevant value.
The best type of content marketing brings your company into your customers’ worlds because they’re open to it.
Rather than simply push-selling your products and services, you provide relevant information to your customers that they’re actually searching for. You intend to capture their attention, earn their trust and gain their loyalty without making them feel that you’re a nuisance or an interruption.
This is why I titled this chapter “Sharing Your Brand’s Story” and I put this AFTER building a strong brand identity. By creating accessible content, people will start to associate a positive image with your business, gaining their following and support.
Furthermore, when you enhance their customer experience with you through content marketing, they will reward you with a sale or at the very least, increased brand awareness.
As they continue to trust you and the information you provide, they’ll also share your content with others in their network as well – this builds a bit of a following.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
The business benefits of content marketing
Aside from gaining your customers’ trust (which is the most important benefit!), here are some other pros of utilising content marketing in your business:
- Content marketing allows you to build a strong brand identity.
If customers can see you through diverse content formats such as blogs, videos, podcasts or newsletters, they’ll be far more aware of you. If you successfully provided them with valuable content, then there’s more chance of them remembering you too.
- Content marketing increases your brand’s appeal.
By giving helpful and useful information through your blogs, website pages and articles, your users are more likely to keep visiting you, which will gradually transform them into leads, customers and advocates.
Good content also improves your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
- Content Marketing establishes your leadership and authority
By consistently producing insightful and informative content, you can position your brand as a thought leader in your field. This authority can set you apart from competitors and make you a go-to source for information.
- Content Marketing powers your marketing tactics
In the next chapter, I’ll explain how all of these pieces of branded marketing content are distributed across all of your channels to connect with customers.
Now that you have all the reasons why you should implement content marketing into your business, what comes next? Copywriting!
How does professional copywriting produce the perfect content?
While not every piece of marketing content is text-based, like, a blog or article does, they all still stem from well-written content and messaging – i.e.: copywriting.
What’s important is that all forms of content must convey the perfect beneficial and relatable message which speaks to your target audience directly.
Never fudge your way through producing content as your brand’s reputation and, by extension, your whole company, depends on what you’re presenting to your target audience.
Enlist the help of professional Australian copywriters to get the result you’re after and align your marketing with the standards your brand deserves.
- What is a Marketing Strategy?
- Why A Marketing Strategic Plan is Crucial for Australian Businesses
- Starting Marketing Strategy from your Business Goals
- Setting SMART Marketing Objectives
- Your Marketing Strategy is an answer to those Goals and Objectives
- Assessing Your Business’ Current Marketing Health
- Understanding Your Target Audience
- Data-Driven decision making in Marketing
- Developing a Strong Brand Identity
- Content Marketing Strategy: Sharing Your Brand’s Story
- Creating a Marketing Plan: Marketing Tactics, Channels and Timing
- Budgeting, Measuring and Analysing Your Marketing Strategy
- Adapting and Scaling Your Marketing Strategy
- Marketing Strategy Development: Next Steps
Chapter 11: Creating a Marketing Plan: Marketing Tactics, Channels and Timing
Great! So, you have your brand and you have your content.
The next step in your Marketing Strategy is to determine:
- What to do with your content (marketing tactics)
- Where to distribute your content (marketing channels)
- When to release your content (marketing timings)
These three elements make up your Marketing Plan.
What are Marketing Tactics?
Marketing tactics are the execution campaigns that give action to your Marketing Strategy. Your marketing tactics involve creating marketing campaigns that distribute your content to your target audience with relevant branded content in order to achieve your business goals and marketing objectives.
These are the to-do lists, arranged into marketing campaigns that will fulfil the goal. As you’ve done all of the steps above in the previous chapters, these should be really refined and ready!
Marketing tactics can be as innovative as you wish! So long as they support the achievement of your marketing objectives and align with your marketing strategy.
The more innovative, the better!
They can include a mixture of paid adverts, like Google Ads or Radio Adverts, to traditional marketing, such as magazine adverts, all the way to newer forms, like Social Media platforms, SEO, digital marketing and more.
As a Marketing Consultant, I’ve even implemented tactics like partnering with complementary businesses, speaking at conferences, running Public Relations campaigns, converting a service into a product and more.
Just make sure that every marketing tactic is being measured and there is space to adapt and adjust as needed.
What are Marketing Channels?
Marketing Channels are where your tactics, brand, content and campaigns will be launched through to reach the desired audience. Marketing Channels include online platforms, social media, your website, print, through an eStore or a bricks and mortar shop.
Marketing Channels vary (especially today) and all have their pros and cons.
It’s important to assess each channel to work out where best to spend your time and resources, however, the one thing to ensure with your marketing channel choice is:
Make sure your customer is at the other end!
What are Marketing Timings?
Marketing timings are when you will launch your specific tactic through the marketing channels you want. As a company, you don’t want all of your marketing campaigns to launch at once! You’ll confuse and overwhelm your audiences!
Instead, put together a calendar of your marketing campaigns and marketing tactics so you can launch them when it’s the most opportune time. I’ll explain more about marketing calendars below.
Planning out when to launch campaigns is critical as timing can really make or break your marketing’s success.
Examples of Marketing Tactics built on your Marketing Strategy
So, let’s take a look at some of the simplified examples I gave above, so I can demonstrate how it all comes together.
- Business Goal: Hire 2 additional Sales Professionals in 6 months
- Marketing Objective: Increase awareness of positive company culture to attract high-calibre talent
- Marketing Strategy: Seek professional copywriters to craft our “About Us” page and organise recruitment advert copywriters.
- Target Audience: Top-performing sales professionals in our industry.
- Brand: In compliance with our brand, showing we have an appealing workplace culture.
- Content: Multiple job adverts that detail the position, benefits and role.
- Marketing Tactic: Launch job adverts to support the HR and Recruitment teams, with support from the About Us page.
- Marketing Channel: Online job boards like Seek and LinkedIn
- Marketing Timing: As the goal is to hire them in 6 months, then launch the ads in 3 months to leave sufficient time for recruitment.
Now, please keep in mind that this is very simplified to provide an example. But you see how they all stack on top of each other?
If you’ve done all of the Marketing Strategy steps in order, you’ll have set yourself up for marketing success.
In the above example, there’s no guessing or skipping parts. Everything is in alignment and working towards a specific goal. That’s how businesses ensure their marketing is strategic and efficient.
Here’s another example of a complete Marketing Strategy with the tactics at the end.
- Business Goal: Establish a secondary business to cater to the premium market in 2029.
- Marketing Objective: Create a whole new brand targeted at the new premium market.
- Marketing Strategy: Build a full brand strategy and suite, including logo, fonts, colours and brand core messaging.
- Target Audience: The premium segment of the industry.
- Brand: To be established with new guidelines. This will not correspond with the current brand as we want the new brand to stand alone.
- Content: New brand guidelines including the new name, logos, fonts, messaging and colours.
- Marketing Tactic: Follow the steps of creating a new brand, from research, internal workshops and hiring a branding agency, to creating a 5-year plan for roll-out.
- Marketing Channel: Initially internal, until public reveal and launch.
- Marketing Timing: As the goal is to establish the brand in 2029, the initial steps of the program should begin in 2025.
Again, this is very simplified.
The marketing tactics, channels and timings would need to be fleshed out significantly as this involves putting together an entirely new brand – but you get the point. Speaking of marketing tactic timings, let’s explore this further – as when is just as important as how and what.
Best practise is to put together a marketing plan that involves a calendar.
What is a Marketing Plan?
Your Marketing Plan is basically your piece-by-piece omnichannel guide for all of your brand’s planned marketing based on your goals, objectives and marketing strategy.
A Marketing Plan is specific so you can pre-plan and schedule pieces of well-chosen content and campaigns across all of your channels that are aligned with achieving your goals.
Think of a marketing plan as your road map document that establishes the exact pieces of content, campaigns, channels and timings that will help you unlock the full potential of your marketing strategy.
This plan will put your marketing strategy into action and serve as an outline that will provide your team with an ongoing guide around the specific marketing you need to create, launch and assess to reach your target audience and achieve your goals.
Why do you need a Marketing Plan?
Plans exist to make the actual workload a bit lighter, less ad-hoc and more streamlined.
This is exactly what a Marketing Plan does for you.
Because sometimes, deciding what marketing tactics to launch when and when is often tougher than creating the marketing content itself! So, as you’re putting together your Marketing Plan, it’s a great time to ask these questions:
- Are you putting in enough resources for marketing?
- Do your tactics address the marketing objectives and strategies?
- Do you have marketing that addresses the needs of the target audience?
- Are you delivering value across the right channels?
With a Marketing Plan, you can address all of these and more. Here are just some of the key benefits of drawing up a marketing plan:
✔ It will help you formulate an omnichannel approach so your brand can be everywhere – reaching your audiences wherever it is most convenient for them.
✔ It will allow you to allocate your budget to the right marketing tactics, so you can deliver the right message across the right channels.
✔ It will guide your team throughout the entire time span, so you don’t have to guess your way through and come up with marketing on the fly.
But what if things don’t go to plan for my Marketing Plan?
As much as we wish we couldn’t see the future, it’s just not our reality (sadly)!
True enough, we cannot predict what lies ahead for your business, but having a clear-cut marketing plan will help you navigate the challenges and opportunities that will inevitably pop up – however uncertain these may be.
How do I develop my Marketing Plan?
If you’ve built out your Marketing Strategy, then building the corresponding Marketing Plan shouldn’t be too difficult.
Your Marketing Plan (tactics, channels and timings) requires some innovative marketing approaches and creative thinking: something that a great Marketing Consultant can do for you!
Often, clients reach out to me and say, “Hey I’ve got this new budget and I know we need it for marketing – but I don’t really know what I’m going to do with it.”
Does this sound familiar?
Does the idea of creating a marketing plan for another 12 months seem daunting to you? Is this the first time that you’ve worked on a Content Marketing Plan?
No stress.
If you have a budget and business goals, then that’s where a skilled Marketing Professional can develop the strategy and plan to achieve them. It’s what we do best!
Tips to help create a Marketing Plan
1. Research your target audience
In your Marketing Strategy, you chose your target customers and defined their persona. But, to come up with an effective plan, it’s always best to start with knowing the latest about the receivers of your messages.
What are their interests? What are their pain points? Where can you reach them?
When the right marketing is delivered across the right channels, you can turn strangers into raving fans in no time – that is the magic of strategic marketing.
2. Research content marketing trends
Once you know enough about your target audience, it’s now time to take a look at the current marketing landscape. Marketing trends often change every year, depending on the evolving needs of your customers.
To keep fresh and up-to-date with the market, it’s important to adapt to and embrace the latest trends. It’s also a great starting point if you are looking for new ideas.
3. Build your marketing plan on your existing marketing strategies
It also helps to know where you stand when it comes to your marketing.
How is your budget looking this year? Do you have more wiggle room this time to come up with more marketing tactics? Is this the year that you can finally execute your dream marketing campaigns?
A review of your existing practises will also help you identify if it’s time to refresh your messaging and connect more with your customers.
4. Create a marketing calendar
You can now create a customised marketing calendar with the exact tactics to launch along with the themes, months and channels. Your calendar can account for business milestones, holidays and other significant events throughout the year so your marketing can be relatable to your customers.
I know this works because my marketing agency, Melotti Media, has its own calendar that we live by and this has significantly made our marketing more planned, convenient and, of course, more effective.
5. Communicate your Marketing Plan with your team
It’s also important to clearly communicate all aspects of your marketing plan with the entire team – this will make sure that (1) you are pooling all your ideas and taking the best ones and (2) no one has to do any guesswork throughout the year.
Empowering the team does not only help in the individual career growth of everyone, but it also guarantees a stronger, more united team that can create the content that your audiences deserve.
6. When in doubt, consult a Marketing expert
If you still have concerns about your Marketing Plan and want to be 100% sure that you’re doing it right – you can always consult marketing experts who can develop your marketing plan for you.
Chapter 12: Budgeting, Measuring and Analysing Your Marketing Strategy
Right! Your Marketing Strategy is well underway by now.
You’ve built it from the ground up with a strategic framework around your goals and objectives, and have a plan for its execution.
It’s now time to allocate resources and set up ways to measure its overall success so we can assess and adapt going forward.
We don’t get this far only to hope it works!
As I wrote above – we don’t know the future and we can’t plan for everything. So, other than being proactive about monitoring our marketing progress, can we be agile enough to adapt?
Setting budgets for your Marketing Strategies
This is a difficult one to answer, as your marketing spend all depends on situations, strategies and budgets that are all unique to you.
All I’ll say here about setting a marketing budget is that you need to determine which marketing tactics to invest in, based on priorities and timings. Assign the greatest budget to what you believe will produce the greatest outcome, which is often related to KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and ROI (Return On Investment).
It’s important to document how much budget you allocate to your given marketing strategy as budgets are one way you can measure the success of your campaigns.
For example, if your spend on Google Advertising per month is, say, $2000 – then knowing this amount will help provide a guide as to how effective this campaign is, especially when comparing it to previous months, other campaigns and other forms of marketing.
Marketers often struggle with Marketing Strategy Measurement
I have found that most people find the measurement and management of marketing strategies daunting, however, it’s best not to think of this stage as a numbers game. Think of it more as a way to monitor how hard your marketing strategies are hitting those goals and objectives.
If they’re not doing well, you can assess and adjust quickly if you’re proactively looking.
If you’re ignoring the data and simply hoping, well, that’s when it leads to potential disasters. No smart brands do this, and neither should you – especially when it’s not that hard. Let me explain.
Why tracking and analysing marketing metrics is crucial
In order to appreciate the importance of this part of your Marketing Strategy Document, let’s discuss the why first.
1. It helps you understand customer behaviour
By viewing metrics like click-through rates, time spent on a page, and conversion rates, you can gain a good insight into what your target customers find appealing and what doesn’t resonate with them. This can help tailor future marketing efforts to better meet customer needs and preferences.
2. Measuring Return on Investment
Tracking ROI metrics allows your business to see the direct impact of your marketing on your sales and revenue. This allows you to understand which strategies are cost-effective and which are not, enabling a more efficient allocation of your marketing budget going forward.
3. Identifying Trends and Opportunities:
Analysing data over time can reveal previously unknown patterns in the market. This can inform decisions about market opportunities, product development and strategic adjustments as time goes on.
4. Optimising Your Marketing Campaigns
Remember that a Marketing Strategy is a living document. This means you need to be agile. By continuously monitoring your marketing metrics, you can make real-time adjustments to campaigns. If certain aspects of a campaign are underperforming, quick changes can be made to improve their effectiveness. Just… no knee-jerk reactions!
5. Benchmarking and Goal Setting
Most importantly, metrics provide a baseline for current performance and help in setting realistic and specific goals for future marketing efforts.
How do I measure my marketing strategy?
In today’s modern age of technology and data, measuring your marketing’s effectiveness has never been easier.
As I wrote in the data chapter, most platforms today actually come with data dashboards built in. You just need to familiarise yourself with what you need, when you need it and how to interpret what it’s all saying.
There is a long list of tools and techniques for marketing measurement. Here are just a few.
1. Web Analytics Tools
Google Analytics is a popular option, offering insights into website traffic, user behaviour, and conversion tracking. These web tools show how users interact with your website and where they come from.
So, if you create a new page or you’re thinking about refreshing your website pages, look here first and then after you’ve published to get a clear understanding of how effective each page is being.
2. Social Media Analytics
Tools like Hootsuite, or native analytics in platforms like Facebook, Instagram and X provide valuable data on engagement, reach, and demographics of social media audiences.
3. Email Marketing Analytics
Platforms like Mailchimp or HubSpot offer internal analytics for email campaigns, tracking open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. This helps in understanding the effectiveness of email content and targeting.
4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
Software platforms like Salesforce or Zoho CRM can track customer interactions and sales, offering insights into the customer journey and effectiveness of sales strategies, in relation to your marketing.
5. SEO and SEM Tools
Digital tools like SEMrush and Google Ads provide insights into search engine rankings, keyword performance, and the effectiveness of paid search campaigns.
6. Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) Tools
Tools like Optimizely or Unbounce allow you to test different versions of your web pages to see which converts better, which allows you to tweak things to optimise the user experience for higher conversions.
7. Data Visualisation Tools
Tools like Tableau or Google Data Studio help in visualising data, making it easier to identify trends, patterns, and insights.
How to implement Marketing Measurement
As I mentioned above – most marketing is measurable and quite easy to do so. Here are a few steps I recommend to ensure you have everything you need at your fingertips to make well-informed marketing decisions.
- Refer to your Objectives: Keep referring back to your business goals and marketing objectives, and then choose metrics that directly relate to these.
- Regular Monitoring: Check your metrics often to stay on top of performance and make timely adjustments as needed.
- Integrate Data Sources: Combining data from different sources can provide a more comprehensive view of marketing performance.
- Test and Learn: Use A/B testing and experiments to continuously refine your marketing strategies based on data-driven insights.
Just remember: it’s ok to make mistakes or for your marketing to underperform, especially if you’ve done all of the marketing strategy steps above. No one ever gets it perfect – that’s impossible.
Nothing is certain in marketing. But it’s not ok to make the same mistake over and over – that’s why you need to keep an eye on results and be agile.
By effectively tracking and analysing your chosen metrics, you can make informed decisions, optimise your marketing tactics, and ultimately drive growth and profitability.
- What is a Marketing Strategy?
- Why A Marketing Strategic Plan is Crucial for Australian Businesses
- Starting Marketing Strategy from your Business Goals
- Setting SMART Marketing Objectives
- Your Marketing Strategy is an answer to those Goals and Objectives
- Assessing Your Business’ Current Marketing Health
- Understanding Your Target Audience
- Data-Driven decision making in Marketing
- Developing a Strong Brand Identity
- Content Marketing Strategy: Sharing Your Brand’s Story
- Creating a Marketing Plan: Marketing Tactics, Channels and Timing
- Budgeting, Measuring and Analysing Your Marketing Strategy
- Adapting and Scaling Your Marketing Strategy
- Marketing Strategy Development: Next Steps
Chapter 13: Adapting and Scaling Your Marketing Strategy
Following right on from this, it’s now time to be able to adapt and scale your marketing strategy document.
As I keep saying, your Marketing Strategy Document is a “live” document. This means it should be accessible and adjustable as your company and market evolve.
That’s the whole point!
If your company grows as a direct result of all of the marketing strategies and tactics you’ve put in place, then awesome! Complete success.
However, when this does happen, you can’t apply the, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle here. Well, sort of. Sure, if marketing tactics are working, then obviously you don’t want to end them; however, you may want to consider expanding them.
I said to a client recently, “If you crack the code where you can insert $1 into the marketing machine and you get $3, $5 or $10 back (or more), then add more dollars until you see things drop.”
What I meant was, that if you have a tactic that’s working, pursue it until you experience diminishing returns – then adapt your marketing strategy.
How do I adapt my Marketing Strategy?
Adapting your marketing strategy involves assessing the metrics and then making a calculated decision as to where to take it next. If it’s working, then does it involve putting more resources into it? Only you can make that call.
I’ve had marketing campaigns where the internal team got so behind the message, and then we rolled it out, and it performed phenomenally. So, the following year, I refreshed and expanded it. I didn’t just run it again, as that’s not always the best choice, however, I found that the team backing the marketing tactics was key to its success.
So, I continued to do this. But that’s not what happens every time!
It’s really hard to provide a clear answer in this section, as every business is different.
Examples of Marketing Strategy Adjustments
To give you an example, I have found in my own company, Melotti Media, that when Google Ads weren’t working for us after 6 months of trialling all different approaches, we decided to cut these and reinvest in events, as they were providing a higher ROI than others.
In another situation, we found that networking groups were a great source of referrals and revenue for our company. So, naturally, I expanded my investment of time in this tactic as it proved the most effective over and over.
It all depends on your circumstances, what you’re seeing and how you’re feeling about all of your marketing strategy. Just don’t sit still: marketing is an ever-evolving game, and you can’t just turn it on and leave it there.
Be proactive.
Adapt when you need to react and expand when you know you’re onto a real winner.
Can you see why the marketing profession isn’t easy?
There’s no one way and things are always shifting. That’s why many companies seek the assistance of a Marketing Advisor to audit their marketing and provide suggestions and market coaching to navigate strategy.
Chapter 14: Marketing Strategy Development: Next Steps
If you’ve read all of these chapters, then well done! Congratulations – you have all you need to develop your Marketing Strategy Document.
Let’s do a super quick recap.
What is a Marketing Strategy?
A Marketing Strategy is the fundamental marketing principles, tactics and actions a company sets out through a highly considered process to achieve its business goals. To build a strong marketing strategy, you need to identify marketing objectives that answer your company goals, and then assess your current situation, your marketing health and your target audience, then build a brand, create content and then launch it into the market, before assessing adapting and expanding.
By achieving your business goals, a marketing strategy supports the growth and progress of an organisation.
A marketing strategy document involves putting all of these essential marketing strategy elements into a written, adaptable document for all of the team to access and act from.
Why A Marketing Strategic Plan is Crucial for Australian Businesses
A strategic marketing plan is essential for all organisations because marketing is a complicated and highly innovative business function. It also has to adapt to the shifting market and customers around it.
For these reasons, a company cannot guess its way through how it performs its marketing as this will lead to a confusing and uncoordinated disaster.
A Marketing Strategy provides a cohesive roadmap to success that unites the internal team and provides a consistent approach.
Starting Marketing Strategy from Your Business Goals
A Marketing Strategy revolves completely around a company’s goals. There is no exception to this. The achievement of your business’ goals determines what marketing campaigns to launch, what marketing content to create and so on.
Your business goals provide the North Star for your marketing strategy, as without goals, you cannot point your marketing toward anything and cannot measure how effective it is in achieving them.
Setting SMART Marketing Objectives
As the success of a Marketing Strategy is based on the achievement of business goals, then those goals must be SMART, which means each needs to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.
Loose, murky goals result in a flimsy Marketing Strategy.
Your Marketing Strategy is an answer to those Goals and Objectives
As I said, every element in your Marketing Strategy should be an answer to your company goals.
Your company goals are a great touchstone to determine if your marketing has wandered off course. So many times, as a Marketing Consultant, I will ask clients: “How does this marketing campaign answer a business goal?”
That’s when they realise they’ve strayed from their original Marketing Strategy. Always check with your business goals and build upwards from there to keep your company laser-focused.
Assessing Your Business' Current Marketing Health
If you want to make progress, you need to start by looking at where you are currently first. One of the first steps of an active marketing strategy involves assessing your current marketing and identifying the gaps that need to be addressed in order to achieve your business goals.
There’s no shame in where your marketing situation currently is. That’s the point of a marketing strategy, after all; it’s about providing a roadmap forward which inevitably leads to the expansion of your marketing function.
Understanding Your Target Audience
Marketing as a practise works by connecting with leads and inspiring them to take action, converting them from strangers to paying customers to raving fans. As such, your target customers and your associated market niche are key if you want marketing to work.
Knowing your audience and your corresponding product, service or platform are the building blocks on which you will form your differentiation, brand, content and marketing tactics.
Data-Driven decision making in Marketing
Today’s technology gives marketers access to data like never before. Marketers must collect this information and interpret it into actionable insights to make well-informed decisions going forward.
While there is a time and place for gut instinct, completely guessing your way forward is never a smart strategy. Instead, review what your numbers are saying and make proactive decisions accordingly.
Developing a Strong Brand Identity
In today’s highly competitive world, having a distinct brand is more important than ever. Creating and crystalising your brand across all of its forms, including messaging, colours, logos, fonts and more, into a Brand Guidelines is essential in order to solidify your distinction.
A full Brand Guidelines allows your team to have access to a consistent, clear and clarified brand which they can then use to connect effectively with target customers.
A poor brand will always lead to poor results and there’s no excuse for a poor brand.
Content Marketing Strategy: Sharing Your Brand's Story
Once you have a well-established brand, you need to form it into branded content pieces that are used to connect with audiences. Content includes website pages, infographics, articles and blogs, podcasts, videos, E-books and more.
These must all be built in alignment with your brand to form an extension and execution of the brand you set out. Your branded marketing content also needs to be relevant to the needs of your target audience and demonstrate why you’re the ideal choice for them.
A content marketing strategy is how your company coordinates all of these content activities.
Creating a Marketing Plan: Marketing Tactics, Channels and Timing
A Marketing Plan involves the actions that will be put in place to achieve your marketing strategy. This involves your marketing tactics, which are the to-do list of marketing activities, along with the channels you will launch them through, and the calendar of timings when you will launch.
A Marketing Plan gives your marketing strategy action and is what most people view marketing to be, as it’s how most people interact with marketing.
Budgeting, Measuring and Analysing Your Marketing Strategy
Marketing isn’t a precise science. As much as we take steps to prepare, markets shift, customers change and the landscape evolves.
However, the strength of a marketing strategy revolves around how you allocate resources, and measure and analyse your ongoing results. With all of the data and insights you can gather once your marketing strategy is underway, you’re able to assess its trajectory.
Adapting and Scaling Your Marketing Strategy
Once you have all of your marketing insights, it’s important to take action and adapt accordingly. Your marketing strategy is a living document, which means that, as things change, so can you. Keep a close eye on what’s working and scale it, while minimising losses with marketing tactics that are underperforming.
Chapter 15: Marketing Strategy Development: Next Steps
Take action! Find an experienced Marketing Advisor who is able to help you put your strategy together, provide innovative ideas and support your growth.
Remember, this complete guide covered all of the theory. Now you need to put it into action, as that’s where the real outcomes are found.
As a Marketing Consultant and Advisor, I can help you with your company’s Marketing, Branding and Communications requirements.
Reach out if you want to discuss your Marketing needs today. I can’t wait to collaborate with you and your team.
Speak to a trusted Marketing Advisor
My name is Christopher Melotti and I offer energised business marketing consulting unlike anything you’ve experienced!
I give your brand, business and team a vibrant dose of results-driven vigour aimed squarely at your goals.
Remember: your current “status-quo” or “same-same” has diminishing returns. You don’t want to be there. Let me reinvigorate your trajectory with my unique Australian business marketing advisory services.
Christopher Melotti
Your trusted Australian Message Marketing Strategist, Creative Consultant & Brand Comms Specialist for Businesses & Professionals who aspire to do great things and want to be renowned for it.
christophermelotti.com.au
chris@melottimedia.com.au
0415 522 521
See what Christopher Melotti’s clients say about his Marketing Consulting services.
