Visit strategy marketing is a crucial element for any company, especially in its early days. Indeed, while you should never make any mistakes in this area, the start-up phase is when your potential customers discover who you are. Your marketing message should reflect your values, to attract customers who will be receptive to what you have to say.
But marketing strategy will serve your company throughout its life. Marketing strategy is a key element in the company's overall strategy for achieving its objectives. objectives commercial. It's the marketing strategy that attracts customers and ensures sales.. To do this, your products or services must respond to market demand. Without a marketing strategy, it will be more difficult to achieve your objectives.
It must therefore highlight product differentiators and services of your company. These are designed to market demand and therefore to your customers' needs. It's by satisfying your customers that you can build a lasting relationship of trust with them.
To satisfy them, you also need to make yourself known to your potential customers using the right channels. To be successful, your marketing strategy must not only enable you to discover new markets to conquer, but also, and above all, enable you to develop new markets, it must be flexible to be able to adapt quickly to changes in the market and the new needs of consumers - your customers. If your marketing strategy is static, you won't be able to adapt quickly to these changes.
This guide will help you set up and build a sustainable, effective and flexible marketing strategy by explaining the steps to follow.
The right questions to ask to create a successful marketing strategy
To create a solid, sustainable marketing strategy, you need to identify several factors, such as visit forces and weaknesses of your companybut also opportunities and the threats competition.
In this way, your marketing strategy will align demand your strengths and may even be able to turn your weaknesses into advantagesby turning them into opportunities. At the very least, your strategy must minimize the latter.
SWOT analysis
To identify your strengths and weaknesses, you can perform a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. This analysis must be rigorous and honest, otherwise it will be useless.
Don't hesitate to ask an experienced third party to help you in your quest for an honest analysis, or if certain points don't seem obvious to you.
Visit a few examples to help you get started.
Visit forces can be: - the high quality of your product - the price of your product - your impeccable customer service.
Conversely weaknesses may be: - lack of financial and/or human resources - poor or non-reactive customer service - limited network and therefore non-existent reputation.
Concerning opportunities or openings, these can be multiple: - a niche market where you can become leader - using the Internet - finding ways to improve your product.
Visit threats can be represented by : - competition in your preferred target market - an economic downturn, as we have experienced in recent years time - a change in regulations requiring you to incur higher costs or make far-reaching changes to your product or service.
Don't hesitate to use this SWOT analysis to create your marketing strategy. This will only be improved by taking into account many parameters that you may not have thought of at first. If your analysis reveals numerous threats and weaknesses, you should always seek to counterbalance with your strengths and opportunities offered by the market.
Marketing plan
Visit second phase of building your marketing strategy is marketing plan. It will help you set your objectives but also the various actions to be implemented to reach them.
The marketing plan must also quantify costs and resources required while setting a calendar to achieve your marketing objectives.
Your plan should be as detailed and clear as possible, listing the following solutions and actions to be implemented and the issues they address.
To achieve this, the plan must identify various customer types sort them into groups and do the same with market trends.
To draw up this plan, you will need to answer several questionsHere are some of the most important:
- What are my company's strengths and weaknesses?
- What's happening in my market?
- What changes are taking place?
- Do they represent a threat or, on the contrary, an opportunity for the company?
- What are my objectives? This is a very important question, as it guides your marketing strategy towards the achievable goals you've set for yourself.
- Who are the customers I want target ? What are they sensitive to? What do they want? Which of them are the most profitable? These customer-related questions are particularly important if you are to price your products and services correctly.
- Once I've identified my target, how do I communicate with it? Are there any special ways?
Once you've found the answers to these questions, don't hesitate to ask a third party what they think of your marketing strategy. And don't hesitate to make changes to your plan and strategy periodically, once a quarter for example.
What are the attributes of a successful strategy, and how can you make the difference?
One of the first key points of a marketing strategy is to the customer segmentation based on their expectations and needs. You can define this with a market research. These groups will be the main focus of your marketing strategy.
Then try to always make the most of your strengths so that they match the expectations of the customers you want to target.
Then define the best way to make yourself known (advertising, press...) webword of mouth) so that your customers know you exist and how you meet their needs. You can do this by advertising, web campaigns and rely on the visibility of your point of sale to create a synergy of resources.
Often overlooked, yet crucial, don't forgetevaluate your communication to see its impact, and change it if necessary. This evaluation gives you the opportunity to find out how your theoretical strategy works in practice.
Also consult your team because your employees will be able to contribute their ideas and optimize your marketing actions together. Also, set aside some time to evaluate the results of your team members, in order to detect shortcomings or, on the contrary, identify unsuspected strengths.
To evaluate your strategy, a watch is mandatory. An easy way to find out if your communication strategy is working or has worked is to from ask each new customer how they discovered the your company.
Sell more to your existing customers by retargeting them a second time
Another step that requires budget which often brings satisfactory results, is to go to expand your existing customer portfolio. Before you set out to conquer new markets and thus new customers, find out whether the customers you've already won over would be willing to buy more from your company. You'll also make savings. You're preaching to the converted.
All these steps are complex but essential to the success of your business. Don't hesitate to enlist the help of competent professionals (coach HR consultant, communications strategist or our SADC team).
Mistakes to avoid
As is often the case, there are a few mistakes you should avoid making before getting started. The first is to never make assumptions about customer needs and requirements. To find out, make market research or talk directly to your customers to find out what you could do better. The SADC is an organization who will assist you in this process.
Second mistake to avoid : ignore your competition. A competitive intelligence is always welcome. It's good to stay informed and up to date with what's going on in your industry, but there's no need to copy. Be ahead of the game by listening to your customers! To do this, ask all your customers, not just a few. Don't settle for a handful of feedbacks. Ask as many people as possible, to please as many people as possible. Furthermore, listening and draw inspiration from customer feedback reveals a major challenge for your company: innovation. Don't rest on your laurels and always look for ways to innovate and offer more.
Please note not wanting to do too much too fast. Don't burn your wings by trying to go too fast, too hard. Taking the time. Reflection is an important phase that will pay off later. So beware of sudden, over-hasty developments.
Finally, another mistake to avoid is trying to compete on price alone of your products and services. Don't be afraid to charge a little more than your competitors. If it's justified and reasonable, there's no reason for customers to turn away from you. You simply won't be targeting the same groups of customers.
To concludeIf you're in a hurry, take note of the tips set out here and do things in the right order.
Start with a SWOT analysis of your company and your market. This will reveal your strengths and weaknesses, as well as the threats and opportunities offered by the market in which you operate.
Next, build on your momentum by creating your marketing plan. This should be as detailed as possible, to ensure the sustainability of your marketing strategy. Take into account as many parameters as possible, and don't hesitate to anticipate and devise alternative solutions in case of failure. This will save you precious time and ensure that you a flexible, sustainable marketing strategy adapted to the needs of your customers and the market in which you operate.
You'll need to ensure that your marketing strategy is sustainable over the long term by making small adjustments and modifications. This is normal and necessary. An optimal strategy adapts to the market and therefore requires small or larger changes from time to time.
By following our step-by-step advice and now knowing the tricks and traps not to fall into, your marketing strategy will be a real success.
SADC Achigan-Montcalm: Who are we?
To help you manage your business efficiently and exploit its full potential, the SADC offers you :
- an array of management consulting
- solutions corporate financing
- and a support for collective projects.
How to find us
As a regional player, we serve companies belonging to one of the following communities from 10 municipalities of the Montcalm MRC as well as municipalities belonging to the L'Assomption RCM (municipalities of L'Assomption, L'Épiphanie and Saint-Sulpice). We also operate for municipalities in the Rivière du Nord RCMSainte-Sophie and Saint-Hippolyte.
In other words, we serve the municipalities of Saint-Hippolyte, Saint-Calixte, Sainte Sophie, Saint-Lin-Laurentides, Saint-Julienne, Saint-Esprit, Saint-Roch-Ouest, Saint-Roch-de-l'Achigan, Saint-Liguori, Saint-Alexis, Saint-Jacques, Sainte Marie-Salomé, L'Epiphanie, L'Assomption and Saint-Sulpice. However, the municipalities of Repentigny and Charlemagne are not eligible for our financial assistance. Our offices are located at 104, rue St-Jacques in Saint-Jacques.
We believed in their project and they put their trust in us.
Since our creation in 1992, we have supported a large number of entrepreneurs in their business transfer, start-up or growth objectives. These include :
Solnor EnvironnementSolnor Environnement is an expert consultant for contaminated land and geology. Solnor Environnement's core business is the management of projects with a geological component, the analysis and study of soil and water, their decontamination and the environmental analysis of sites.
Lait de poule inc. the maternity and nursing specialist in l'Assomption, offering clothing and textiles for pregnant women and textiles to facilitate breastfeeding.
Brasserie L'Apothicaire of St-Jacques de Montcalm, whose mission is to support an ecosystem of regional microbreweries, and to help and contribute to the emergence and development of local players offering products of excellence.
The integration company Job Access Buffet whose core mission is to provide a gateway to the job market in the catering sector.
While these players belong to a wide variety of economic sectors, the fact remains that our approach, which focuses on the local level and on serious, well-thought-out support tailored to their objectives, has contributed to these successes. success stories. Behind each of these entrepreneurs was a ambitious project, and we are proud to present their success..
SADC can help you develop your business. Call on our team to bring your entrepreneurial projects to fruition.
