Mark AdamsIt’s never too early to start planning your business goals for next quarter or even next month. Setting marketing benchmarks is the only way you’ll be able to achieve scalable growth throughout the next few months and beyond. To help you plan, we’ve outlined the difference between marketing goals and a marketing strategy so you can improve yours and connect with higher-quality prospects.
Marketing Goals:
- Are generally based on the year-end goals.
- Tend to prioritize the goals, even if they’re unrelated to traditional marketing.
- Are formulated based on the needs and goals of a business.
Marketing Strategies:
- Are about the future.
- Who or what the business is targeting.
- How the business will achieve goals, while maintaining the company’s identity.
- Marketing strategies should align with the current goals to create the best outcome. They shouldn’t become goals in themselves.
- Business goals are mostly focused on long-term, average revenue growth and profit. They are customized to meet the needs of the business, and are formed based on its current marketing tactics.
- Marketing goals should be planned, gauged and then adjusted for better results as the situation changes. They shouldn’t be set up for the next six months up until the end of the year just in case.
- For example, if a tax season is coming up, it is always advantageous to have a marketing strategy that allows you to raise a substantial amount of money. This would be better for the company than an advertising campaign that is promoting to its customers that it is paying off.
Compare the following:
Marketing goal: Raise US$1 million online by the end of this year.
Marketing strategy (decided after investigation): To raise $2 million online by the end of next month by specifically targeting new customers into US$50 + US$100 per month accounts.
At the end of next month, the company has a better chance of not only being able to pay off the year’s debt, but also has more online sales.
Marketing Goals:
- Sell over 300 units per month.
- Add US$500,000 in cash flow per year.
- Improving customers’ field service score from 80 to 90 points.
Marketing Strategy:
- Sell rate of over 300 units per month to people who service between US$45 to US$200 per month.
- Use online advertising to increase sales to new customers from US$40 to US$250 per month in the next phase of the marketing strategy.
- Create a new viral marketing plan to increase the field service score in the Canadian markets to over 90 points per customer.
Marketing Goals:
- Raise US$25,000 to US$75,000 by September 1st.
- Develop a marketing plan that promote the new product to existing customers.
Marketing Strategy:
- Raise US$25,000 per month by September 1st. Find as much current traffic as possible by offering promotions in an effort to increase sales.
- When attempting to develop a marketing plan, it is crucial to understand how your competitor is promoting.
Marketing Goals:
- Increase SEO rank.
- Increase sales.
Marketing Strategy:
- Increase sales and SEO rank by promoting the product in websites with the top five keywords.
- When setting marketing goals, it is vital that you create goals that are high enough that you’ll be able to put effort into achieving them, yet not so impossible that you won’t complete them.
- This is why it is important to set medium-level goals for the business, while setting all-star goals for the future.
Aspects that due to their importance are easily overlooked during the development of a marketing strategy include the following:
Lead generation: Building your business on the internet isn’t as simple as you may think. You also need to be able to quickly identify the best leads, and create the relationships with them that would lead to the customer buying from you.
Because you are already successfully building the relationship, you tend to have the upper hand when it comes to getting leads in the first place. This is where you must work on building partnerships with e-mail marketing and weekly editorial.
Social media: A lot has already been written about social media to promote your business. However, it is important to understand that these networks are great marketing tools, but they are not suitable to serve all of your marketing needs.
Depending on your business, it is crucial to have a social media plan that is adapted to its advertised field and that is defined in email marketing, banner ads and PR.
Website: After you develop your social media marketing strategies, it is time to set up your website. The large number of people browsing the internet today makes it a must to have a link to your e-commerce site embedded in your website.
In this way, you can take advantage of the laws that state that buyers have the right of 14 days to change their minds. However, in order to strengthen this referrer, you must always make sure that you have an easy way of contacting customers, along with data from your e-commerce platform.
Innovate: When developing marketing strategies, it is key to have clear communication with customers. In business, it’s not only important to know what you want your customers to remember about your business, but also what you want them to remember you.
With this in mind, it is important to use your e-commerce platform to develop the concepts of your amazing products, as well as the service in which you earn their trust. This will help you add value and create branding, which is the basis of any good marketing campaign.
You can easily create a trending marketing campaign by integrating the new and valuable products into your e-commerce platform. Use these elements of the campaign to attract customers, wherever they may be found.
When setting goals, it is important to first identify the main fields of competition, and then focus on those areas that are not well or unknown to the existing competitors. This helps improve your chances of success.
One of the most common and effective ways to raise the awareness of a new product is through advertising. In the early stages of its life, this method of promotion may, however, be a bit less fruitful than at a later time. To understand why this is, it is important to know that advertising is a multi-layered idea that has begun to get recognition in terms of strategy and planning.
Advertising can be a strategy that allows you to make your company known and get your message across, which may, in turn, lead to increased sales in the future. Our article, “Marketing Strategies for new companies,” outlines the things you must have in mind when thinking about advertising and the steps you must take to do so. For our readers, we have decided to provide even more details about how to successfully promote your business to new customers by means of advertising.
Define goals
The initial step in the marketing strategy is to set some goals that will correspond with your advertising campaigns. As stated previously, the goals that you set in this phase are the key to determining the effectiveness and value of advertising campaigns. Therefore, the more you know about marketing and your customers, the more effective your company will be.
It is important to know what you want the market to know about you and what it is that you want to say to the world. Never forget that your customers have to be attracted to your company in the first place. It is their loyalty that will make your business thrive and create a sales cycle.
For example, if you have an internet marketing company that focuses on growth, search-engine optimization and web design, but you don’t have services for the Canadian and U.S. markets, you will not be able to convince customers to give you their money. You would probably have more success promoting a product from the US and UK markets by acknowledging the fact that your products are not perfect for the Canadian market, and they must be sold as a brand-new product.
Prioritize a few key goals
Once you identify the most important goals and objectives that will allow you to accomplish your overall goal, you only have to prioritize them in order to set them in motion. Follow this list:
Identify the keywords that will be used as your main point of reference.
Create the advertising strategy by determining which elements of the campaign will be used to reach the target audience – such as direct mail, banner ads, e-mail marketing, SEO and social media.
Set the dates and times of your campaign
Define in great detail what advertising you will use; this is the main key to success.
Adapt the campaign to your company’s image
The most effective means of marketing is to keep the image relevant to your company, while paying attention to its image in the marketplace.
For example, if your company has a great niche, you can achieve success by adapting your message to this niche. An effective advertising campaign will present your business as a better alternative to your competitors, and will be always respectful of the best of your industry.
To stay competitive, you must use the same amount of money that they do. You must not believe that a strategy that adapts to industry’s conformity is too expensive, because that is what will make your business decline, which they will do if you can update your services.
Therefore, always consider:
How strong are your competitors? Work out a strategy to outbid them;
How strong is your audience? Analyze what is used to describe your company in the market and use this same language to generate buzz in the industry;
How much can you afford? Calculate the cost of your campaign.
If you are a beginner or experimenting, use a free tool to see how what you or an expert say about your company will be perceived and whether it is effective. Note that the vast majority of people fail to communicate effectively; you can take this into account when making the campaign.
However, if your company has a big identity, then you will have to use similar language to the other companies in the industry. It is important to be authentic with your clients, and not to tell more than your customer wants to hear.
Use the right mediums
Once the campaign has begun, make the above-mentioned research when you are ready to roll. If you are planning to use your e-commerce platform, make a list of the ways in which your customers use your product.
Marketing campaigns can be more effective at the right time of the day if it is distributed through the channels of your choice. It is important to understand which channels are cheaper and which are more efficient – from which pay-per-click ads you pay more than others.
You should also be aware that some channels may take up a lot of your budget, so you must be careful with the amount of money that you spend for marketing activities.
Make A Conversation Work
The most common and cheapest form of advertising is direct mail. If you have decided to invest in this technique, it is important to make it a part of your marketing strategy. If you have not been successful in your previous campaigns, make direct mail your key to success.
The same goes for direct telemarketing and social media. Make these your primary communication devices, as they have a great influence and are incredibly cost-effective.
Choose the right marketing campaign
If you have decided on a marketing campaign that seems perfect for you, don’t fail to make a budget plan to see what you have.
Once your budget has been set, decide which media will be used and how you will use them – sample scripts and ideas will help you. Ensure that the message does not change, saving you money: if you keep it consistent, it will be easier for you to spend it in a better way, which is what you want.
Measure the results
Once you know how you can employ your marketing campaign to best reach your customers, ensure that it is successful.
After conducting a campaign, determine the number of people who have been reached.
Then calculate the management of your marketing budget, which should include:
The cost of the campaign, including the cost of the message, which will be higher if you use media and services that do not have a repeat audience, and will be lowered if you have a strong brand in your industry.
The sales or prices of your products, as you will have to directly know this information.
Finally, measure your return on investment: if the campaign reached its goals, this would be the results.
If you cannot measure the results of your campaign, it is most likely due to the marketing technique being improper and ineffective. However, it is already too late; you will not be able to make changes in a campaign that is already on course to fail.
Keep abreast of your company’s evolution
Let us now look into the tactics for the long-term marketing campaign. This is the most important aspect of your business. Even if you have advertised for a few months or years, it is the growth and development of your company that will
