Marketing is the backbone of any thriving business. It serves as the driving force behind its growth and visibility. A successful marketing strategy can get people to take notice of brands, sparking interest, building awareness, and fostering lasting connections.
The global advertising spend is estimated to grow as much as 8.2% in 2024 and is set to reach a record $1 trillion (£788 billion). To make the most of your marketing investment, you need to develop a rock-solid marketing strategy. This ensures that your marketing campaign obtains its maximum reach with an optimised ROI.
To learn more, keep reading below for 10 steps you must follow to create a complete marketing strategy for 2024 and beyond.
1. Identify Goals and Objectives
You cannot rush headlong into a marketing campaign without establishing your specific goals and objectives first. Good marketing takes time to lay out the groundwork. This includes elements like identifying the goals of your campaign.
Brands must ask themselves what the purpose of their campaign is or what they hope to achieve with their marketing efforts. For example, a common goal of many marketing campaigns is to increase brand awareness. From there, you need to figure out the best ways to achieve this increased brand awareness.
Be sure that your marketing strategy includes specific and measurable goal setting. Following the SMART marketing model gives you objectives that are:
- S- Specific
- M-Measurable
- A- Attainable
- R- Realistic
- T- Timely
This helps give you a tested and structured guideline to ensure marketing strategy success.
2. Understand Your Target Audience
Your target audience is the key source of your marketing efforts. If you need to delve further into what makes your brand tick, perform market research to understand the unique customer bases your brand most resonates with. You can then use this data to create your ideal customer profile.
Your customer profile will contain data such as the gender or identity, age range, marital status, education level, and income range of your brand’s most desirable customer. For example, an activewear brand may primarily target active and educated individuals, both married and single, between the ages of 25-40, who have moderate to high-level incomes.
Every brand will have its own unique customer profile depending on the products and services offered. Tailoring your marketing strategy to your target audience allows you to direct your marketing efforts to the most effective channels and methods.
3. Utilise Integrated Marketing Channels
There are many ways to market your brand. For example, the traditional methods include print mailers, TV commercials, and radio ads. However, in the modern age, these marketing methods have expanded to other areas like social media, email, and digital content marketing.
A successful marketing strategy doesn’t always require a singular advertising approach. In fact, the most successful brands are those that branch out into multiple channels of marketing. They take on a multifaceted approach to give their brand its maximum reach.
International brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, and Apple use a mix of different marketing channels like email marketing, social media, and other digital content marketing to reach their target audience. If you’re looking to boost the visibility of your brand, tapping into different marketing channels is vital.
4. Develop a Content Marketing Plan
Proper content marketing is essential for helping your brand connect with its target audience. But it isn’t enough to just fill a webpage with words and imagery and call it a day. Your content must be relevant to your brand and your target audience while also being compelling, educational, and engaging.
Content marketing is also a crucial aspect of how a brand gains consumer trust. By providing informative content, it helps a brand position itself as an industry expert. It also builds a brand’s credibility with its target audience.
Incorporate content such as blog posts, infographics, and videos. You can also include interactive content like polls and surveys. 88% of marketers have achieved success in building trust and credibility while increasing brand awareness from well-crafted content marketing.
5. Focus on Social Media Marketing
Social media is an unignorable force to be reckoned with in the marketing industry. Brands that overlook the profound impact of a winning social media marketing strategy will find themselves at a significant disadvantage.
After all, there are an estimated 5.17 billion social media users in 2024, representing a 5.7% increase from just last year. There are also several different platforms with varying demographics to tap into, like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn.
TikTok and Instagram appeal to a younger age demographic with short-form video content, while LinkedIn is commonly used for professional business purposes. Facebook is a versatile social media platform that caters to a diverse audience of different age groups and interests.
Choose the platforms that are the most relevant to your brand and your target audience’s needs. It will also help guide the proper content creation tactics to encourage liking and sharing.
6. Create Branded Merchandise
Branded merchandise can be a powerful part of a brand’s marketing strategy. It offers a business the opportunity to create lasting brand impressions through tangible goods. Each exposure to a brand’s promotional merchandise goes towards building long-term brand awareness and reach.
For small businesses and startup businesses, it is especially important to get the word out through branded merchandise. Branded merchandise can include everything from apparel to tote bags, pens, and promotional mugs.
A promotional mug is a useful everyday object that consumers will use to enjoy their daily coffee or tea. With your brand’s logo and information on the mug, you connect with your target audience each time the mug is used. It also has the ability to reach others who see the mug’s branding at home or in the workplace.
7. Leverage Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing is a tried and true marketing method for brands of all sizes. It can nurture new customer leads and maintain existing relationships.
Personalise email content to make your brand more endearing to your target audience. This lets you create stronger connections with your customer base and build brand loyalty. Email marketing can also be used to recommend new products and services based on a customer’s past purchase history.
Offering special promotions and discounts can boost sales during off times. A customer may have had their eye on something on your website but decided not to buy it due to the price. A coupon or promotion sent to their email triggered by an abandoned cart can encourage them to come back and complete their order.
8. Conduct Competitive Analysis
A complete marketing strategy doesn’t just involve how your brand is performing. You must also see how any potential competitors are also performing. Understanding what others in your industry are doing well and where they fall short can inform your strategy.
Conduct market research and analyse your competitors. This can aid you in identifying gaps in the market and uncovering new possibilities to help further differentiate your brand.
For example, if your competitors are offering special limited-time promotional products like branded mugs, but your business isn’t, it may be time to look into how you can expand your promotional product line.
Competition between brands can sometimes be daunting. However, you should view it as an opportunity to always be on the alert for ways to improve your business model and stay relevant.
9. Implement Data Analytics
You must be able to track and assess your marketing efforts. Use data analytics to measure the impact and performance of your marketing strategy. This will help you see where your marketing campaigns are succeeding and where they may stand to benefit from some improvement.
Consider feedback from customers as part of your marketing strategy as well. If you are hoping to find favour with your target audience, why not go directly to the source to find out what they do and don’t like? Track customer feedback to see how their opinion of your brand changes over time.
Data analytics can also show you the calculations of your ROI for your marketing campaigns. This helps marketers and brands determine the effectiveness of each campaign against the overall costs.
10. Adapt and Evolve Your Marketing Strategy
Even with a seemingly bulletproof marketing strategy in place, a brand’s work is never done. The marketing and advertising industry around us is always changing and evolving to accommodate new trends and emerging technologies. In the same vein, successful brands must also always be ready to adapt and evolve right along with these trends and innovations.
Whenever possible, it is best to re-examine your existing marketing strategy and see where any changes may need to be made. Doing so will allow your brand to stay fluid in the ever-evolving and dynamic landscape that comes with navigating the unpredictable marketing world.
Optimise Your Marketing Strategy with Branded Mugs from Prince William Pottery
A good marketing strategy can make all the difference to a brand looking to connect with its target audience and establish a strong brand presence. By following these steps, your brand can flourish and thrive.
Prince William Pottery specialises in custom-branded promotional mugs for small businesses. Our high-quality mugs are an affordable way for your brand to make an impact. Our mugs also make terrific promotional gifts, charity merchandise, and employee recognition gifts.
Ready to raise a glass (or a mug) to a more successful marketing strategy in 2024? Then contact us to get started on your custom order today.
Related: How To Create an Effective Go-To-Market Strategy
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