Is top line growth a key objective for your firm this year? If so, then a marketing strategy is a crucial component to your planning.
High growth companies invest heavily in a customer-centric marketing strategy because they know it’s essential to sustainable, profitable growth.
Research consistently finds that B2B buyers complete nearly 60% of their buying process before they elect to engage with a sales person. This means that the way you market has to change, to ensure that your offering gets due consideration. You have to create content that will:
- Convert visitors to leads and leads to sales prospects
- Answer the questions leads have as they figure out their needs and options
- Facilitate each stage in the buying process
Turbulent economic times and shifting buying behavior to expose weak marketing strategies. If your revenues are not where you want them to be, then it’s time to refresh your strategy.
What is a Marketing Strategy?
Your marketing strategy should document your firm’s brand identity, detailed buyer insights (their situation, needs, trigger events and buying journey), buyer-centric positioning and messaging, and your strategy for reaching those buyers.
It should include details about sales goals, profitability targets and lifetime customer value. It should show how you plan to capitalize on economic, business and social trends affecting your customers. It should address the competitive environment, your relative advantages and disadvantages, your competitive positioning and your differentiation based on buyer requirements and expectations.
Finally, it should include an overall content strategy, a plan for marketing channels, and your approaches for an integrated inbound and outbound marketing plan.
Most importantly, the strategy also defines what you’re NOT going to do.
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
— Michael Porter
Do We Need a Marketing Strategy?
Many companies invest heavily in marketing tactics, content marketing and digital marketing without a clear, documented strategy. This is a great way to waste a lot of money without getting the desired results.
It drives up your cost of sales and creates unnecessary confusion for your buyers, sales people, media and other stakeholders. It can also cause you to miss out on opportunities you could have won, simply because the customer either didn’t know about or didn’t understand how your offering could help them.
Not having a solid marketing strategy wastes money, time and credibility.
How PropelGrowth Helps Develop a Marketing Strategy
No matter where you’re starting from, PropelGrowth can help you develop an effective marketing strategy for your organization. Our strategic marketing plans include the following:
- Sales goals, revenue targets, and expected 1st year and lifetime customer value
- Buyer-centric messaging and positioning of the services and products you offer
- Detailed customer descriptions including needs, triggers, buyer personas, buyer journeys, and customer-centric messaging
- Economic, business and social trends impacting your customers
- Your inherent strengths and weaknesses in the context of customer needs, the competitive marketplace, and the trends described above
- How your offering is differentiated
- Plans for how you will reach that audience via outbound marketing, events, digital channels, sales outreach, social media, etc.
- Pricing and anticipated ROI for different customer segments and needs
PropelGrowth Can Help
We know firsthand how hard it is to develop a marketing strategy and plan. However, the rewards for marketers who focus on this approach can be dramatic. A solid strategy can help improve the quantity and quality of new leads, shorten sales cycles, improve bid-to-win ratios, and grow top line revenue and margins. It empowers your prospects and it empowers your sales people, helping them close more deals more efficiently.
PropelGrowth can help you develop a marketing strategy that facilitates the buying process.