Achieve Your Sales Goals Like a Marketing Pro by Nadia Lykke Redlo

Imagine the frustration and disappointment when you invest time and money into marketing activities without seeing tangible results. The constant uncertainty and lack of a clear path forward can quickly deplete your budget and fail to bring you closer to your business goals.

By focusing on overarching goals and strategy, tactics and tools become easier to manage because you know where you're headed.

However, if you start with various marketing activities or trends, it's easy to lose direction - you're not quite sure where you're going and may be misled by "vanity metrics" instead of steering towards the set goals.

I've worked in marketing and communication for over 10 years, both as an employee, a consultant, a freelancer, and in my own ventures. I've collaborated with small businesses, solo entrepreneurs, hyped startups, and established larger corporations. What determines a company's success in marketing (and thus its sales goals) can be distilled down to one thing: a unified strategy and a forward plan.

A strategy functions like a map, where you start with the end in mind – setting your goals. The strategy is the roadmap to how you'll reach those goals. A well-defined strategy also ensures that you know you're on the right path – it should be measurable.

For small businesses, this is absolutely critical to reach your desired destination. I've had many meetings with small businesses where they want help with specific tasks, like TikTok advertising or marketing automation. However, when we start discussing it, there's no strategy behind it at all. They don't even know where they're going or what they specifically want to achieve. They also don't know if these are the most effective channels to reach their target audience or how much time and resources the person behind the business will need to invest. The big picture is missing, and this is crucial in determining the results you'll get.

A well-crafted marketing strategy plays a pivotal role in a company's success. By strategically focusing your efforts and resources on areas expected to yield the best returns, you can maximize your chances of success. A well-designed strategy also helps you avoid wasting money on marketing activities that won't generate your desired outcomes.

If you're a startup, a small business, or for any other reason have a limited budget, it can be challenging to bring in specialists for all the marketing activities you need to undertake. However, with guidance, you can efficiently handle most of these activities on your own in the beginning before you have a solid budget. Nevertheless, it's difficult to know where to start, what to invest in, what to measure, and how to go about it.

So what is a marketing strategy and why is it a must?

A marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan or strategic framework that aims to achieve a business’s marketing goals. It defines how you will market your products or services to reach your target audience and achieve desired outcome.

So how do you build your own marketing strategy and action plan? 

I will show you how you do a core marketing strategy, When you have your general strategy you can also do specific strategies for example a new product launch in that case you most often do a Go-to-market strategy (GTM)

1 SMART GOALS

Starting a marketing strategy with goals is crucial because it provides clear direction and purpose. Using SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals ensures that objectives are specific, measurable, realistic, and time-bound. This approach enhances focus, accountability, resource allocation, and the ability to measure progress, ultimately increasing the strategy's effectiveness and success.

2. Target Audience Analysis (You can download your free workbook and template at the end of this article)

A Target Audience Analysis is the process of thoroughly understanding the individuals or groups most likely to be interested in your product or service. It involves gathering data and insights into their demographics, behaviours, preferences, and pain points. The primary advantages of conducting such an analysis are that it enables precise, tailored marketing efforts that result in higher engagement, more efficient resource allocation, increased conversions, a competitive edge, and overall business growth.

2.1 Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) - Target Audience Analysis 

An ICP is a detailed description of the perfect customer for your business. It encompasses demographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics that make a customer an ideal fit for your products or services.

3. Resource allocation & budgeting

Costs related to, for example, advertising, content creation, freelancers, etc. It helps you prioritize and you may also consider historical ROI (return-on-investment), if you have any.

4. Competitive Analysis

A Competitive Analysis is a strategic evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of your business relative to your competitors. It involves researching and assessing key aspects such as their market presence, product offerings, pricing strategies, marketing tactics, and target audience. Begin by doing a SWOT analysis.

5. Channel selection

A channel strategy within a marketing strategy is the plan for how and where you'll reach your target audience. On which channels and platform are your Ideal customer profile? Is it on TikTok, Reddit or Instagram? Or is it in print magazines and blogs?

You can categorize different channels with the framework owned, earned, and paid.

6. USPs

A Unique Selling Point (USP) is a distinctive quality that sets a product or brand apart from competitors. It's crucial in a marketing strategy because it creates a competitive edge, builds brand identity, fosters customer loyalty, guides product development, and leads to increased sales and business success.

7. Marketing Tactics

Marketing tactics within a marketing strategy refer to the specific actions and methods employed to implement the broader strategic goals. These tactics are the tangible steps taken to engage with the target audience, promote products or services, and ultimately achieve the objectives set out in the overarching marketing strategy.

The purpose of including marketing tactics in a strategy is to provide a clear and practical roadmap for executing the strategic plan. While a marketing strategy outlines the overall direction, goals, and audience insights, tactics serve as the means to bring that strategy to fruition.

For example, here you might want to have a special deep-going tactic for your paid advertisement.

8. Social media strategy

A social media strategy is a plan outlining how a business uses platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etc., to achieve its goals. It's crucial in a marketing strategy because it directly engages the target audience, builds brand trust, gathers insights, boosts visibility, and can drive leads and sales.

9. Measurement and KPIs

Defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in a marketing strategy is crucial. It allows for clear measurement of marketing effectiveness, enables data-driven decisions, fosters team accountability, optimizes resource allocation, and ensures alignment with overall business goals. This leads to more effective and successful marketing efforts.

These are the key components of a marketing strategy and plan. Without a strategy, you don’t know where you are heading, or what way to choose, and you will not have the knowledge to know whether something is working or not. You will be in the blind.

It is also important to remember that while a strategy provides a plan, it's important to be adaptable. A well-structured strategy allows for adjustments based on real-time data and changing market conditions.

So get ahead and start working on your marketing strategy, It’s fun and it will feel so great when you have one, like you have a map and know exactly where to go. Don’t make the task too big and overwhelming, do one chapter of your strategy per day, and give yourself some time to reflect on it. And do your research! Especially for step 2, the Target Audience Analysis, this step is fundamental for all your activities in the future.

I did create a free resource for you to use in this step, "Target Audience and Customer Persona Work Book and Template" where I will take you step-by-step through the workbook to make it easy for you to identify your ideal customer profile. There are also some powerful ChatGPT prompts to help you along the way. 

You get the free workbook and template HERE.

Thank you so much for reading my article and I’d be happy to connect with you!

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