Why you need a marketing strategy in 2023

12 January 2023

Creating A Marketing Strategy In 2023 That Works

Another one bites the dust. Another year we mean. We hope your business achieved extraordinary success, and you smashed your marketing goals.. Now we are into the new year, and one with so much economic uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to have a clear strategy with defined and measurable goals. Without it, you’re facing the new year playing catch up, when you want to be starting it on top and with a bang.

So many businesses put their marketing into a set and forget model, which may work when business is booming. But with the rising costs of, well, everything, we need to work smarter, not harder. All brands want to do this. It’s the “how” that can be challenging. Your marketing strategy is key to achieving the best ROI on your marketing investment. As soon as you understand what a marketing strategy is and why you need one. And then create your own to implement and monitor, you’re on your way to having the most profitable year yet.

What is a marketing strategy?

According to the Oxford dictionary, it is “a plan of action designed to promote and sell a product or service.

Why every business should have a marketing strategy, no exceptions.

Real results don’t happen by chance. If you craft a marketing strategy that ensures you’re targeting the right people, in the right place, with the right message you will create more opportunities, close more sales and generate a better ROI.

It’s also important because the sales and marketing activities need to support the overall growth targets/goals of your business, which would be difficult to do without a clear strategy. It would be like going into a football game without a gameplan.

What’s in a marketing strategy?

No brand can be everything to everyone. Put simply, a marketing strategy sets out your business goals, including who your ideal customers are and how you intend to reach them. It’s your plan of action and the blueprint to the marketing activity you will do in the coming months and years to grow your business.

Put simply, a marketing strategy will align your business goals with a set of marketing tactics that will help you achieve them. The key things you need to have in your marketing strategy are:

1. Business Goal – Increase revenue by 15% or Sell XX product in 12 months

2. Ideal Client – You may have one, you may have many, but in order to get the right message to the right person at the right time, you need to define that ideal persona

3. Marketing Channels – SEO, Google Ads, Social Media etc

4. KPI’s – You need to know what you are tracking ie: increase organic conversions by 10%

5. Timelines – This could be a season campaign ie: EOFY Sale etc

Some marketing strategies can be 20 pages long and very in depth, and others only a page. It really depends on the size of your business. If you don’t have an internal marketing team, it’s best to start with a simple 1 page strategy. Mash is focused on helping our clients grow, so we created a 1 page marketing strategy template that you can download and use yourself.

Download your FREE 1 page Marketing Strategy Template

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Creating your marketing strategy.
We know that creating marketing strategies can be overwhelming as there are so many options available, from many different channels and strategies. That’s why we created our free 1 page marketing strategy template to make this easier to understand and complete.

1. Business Goals aren’t uncomplicated. Keep it simple, but make it specific. For example, writing – “Get More Customers” is too ambiguous and will be impossible to track from a marketing perspective. Make sure you provide a specific figure such as; Increase Turnover by 15% or Increase Website Sales By 15%.

2. Ideal Client Personas – Like most businesses this could seem like a million dollar question. The key to identifying your ideal customers is to focus not on demographics but on their persona. See how the demographics may be the same but the persona will be very different…

customer_persona_demogrpahics

Creating your ideal customer personas can be daunting, if you need some more guidance check out a blog all about creating your ideal customer persona, if even has a free template to use.
3. Marketing Channels & Activities – This becomes easier when you know your ideal customer persona. Will your clients be looking on Google for your products or services? Do you need to educate them on your business via social media? We can help. Here is a marketing funnel that highlights different marketing channels and stages of intent..

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Knowing where to spend your marketing dollars is very important.

The Top Of The Funnel (TOF)
Typically the brand awareness (TOF) activities are suited for larger businesses or brands, or for businesses that need to educate the market on their product/service, the most cost effective way to do this is through Social Media or YouTube Ads.

The Midle Of The Funnel (MOF)
Most SMB’s spend most of their marketing budget on Considersation Phase activities (MOF), start by being found when your customers are looking as these are the hottest leads most likely to convert.

The Bottom Of The Funnel (BOF)
The bottom end of the funnel is important for every business, not matter your size, and is often overlooked. I am sure quite a few of you reading this are guilty of this (am I right?). You spend money on driving traffic to your website, but have you assessed the conversion rate of your website? Have you beta tested your messaging/offers/ads?

Whether you have a bricks and mortar business, an online e-commerce store or you sell a product or service, the online space is becoming more and more competitive. If you want to thrive you need to have a clear data driven strategy to help you achieve your goals. Dont let this be the year that you become complacent with your marketing, because if you do, you may get left behind by your competitor

The fact is these are different times. Your business and your customers are facing global economical factors like the rising cost of living like food and fuel, bringing uncertainty to consumers. Having a digital marketing strategy that works means you have the potential to reach a worldwide audience. Now is not the time to be complacent in your online presence and marketing efforts. We’ve previously seen in times of economic crisis those that market smartly succeed, and those that don’t lose their market share as discussed here.

Creating a 2023 digital marketing strategy helps you, your business, and your team to have a clear understanding of where you are now in the online space. As well as where you want to be and how you are going to get there. Creating and implementing this plan will help achieve your business goals with the help of modern tools and techniques allowing you to connect with customers globally. Choosing to not plan ahead puts you on the back foot, behind your competitors that do.

In a world where most businesses survive in the digital space, a digital strategy is necessary. So, what do you need to do to create a successful marketing strategy in 2023? Start with a plan! Mash is here to help you discover your audience, define your objectives, set performance KPIs and create a guide to achieve success. Get started today by clicking on this link here.

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