Let’s orient ourselves — what is strategic marketing, and (more importantly) what makes it different from that good ole’ fashioned marketing that was good enough for my grand-pappy dad gum it?
Strategic marketing has a lot of definitions, but I like this one best from Saurabh Kumar Jha on Quora in answer to the question,”what is strategic marketing” on Quora:
“When you sell your product in the market, you’re marketing. When you sell to your customers in the market, you’re strategically marketing.”
This one I’ll paraphrase from DaviesBDM.com (check out the article here) ain’t too shabby either:
“What is strategic marketing? The Role of Strategic Marketing is to decide the following:
- Which markets to compete in (where to compete)
- What the basis of the firm’s competitive advantage is going to be (how to compete)
- When and how the firm will enter each market (when to compete)”
These both boil down to one basic principle — marketing with purpose.
A lot of companies (and not just small businesses) market without a purpose. They haven’t asked themselves the question, “what is strategic marketing and how does it apply to us?” Instead, they market because they know they’re supposed to.
They market because someone told them to. But there’s no purpose behind the marketing. They don’t know who they’re marketing to. They don’t know why they’re marketing in the places they’re marketing in. They don’t know who they’re marketing against. What is strategic marketing for these guys and gals? It’s non-existent.
They’re just making noise.
And the world is pretty noisy already these days.
You don’t want to get lost in the noise, do you?
What Is Strategic Marketing’s Purpose for My Small Business?
What is strategic marketing’s purpose? The purpose of strategic marketing is to make sure you’re not just blasting out content or information, of any sort, to the world.
Not to your customers, to the world.
You know, like the animals and the trees and what not. Cause it’s certainly not talking to anyone specific.
That’s often what marketing like this looks like. You’re often not even clear who the marketing is supposed to be talking to (hint-hint: it’s not talking to anyone).
It’s marketing to everyone, which means it’s marketing to no one. People tune that crap out.
We’ve all developed advertising blinders, customers and marketers alike. To get past those blinders, you need to market with a purpose. What is strategic marketing? It’s marketing to someone specific.
When you know why you’re marketing and who you’re marketing to, you’ll suddenly find that your marketing is much more effective.
So how can a small business ask itself, “what is strategic marketing to us?” to create strategic marketing campaigns that actually work?
Stop shooting in the dark.
You may not have the budget to perform competitive research on your competitors.Or you’re just trying to break into the market in the first place. So focus instead on a strategy of who to market to, when to market, and how to market. Start by defining your audience (we sure harp on this a lot don’t we? It’s cause it’s friggin’ important!)
What is strategic marketing going to do if you don’t know who you’re marketing to? Not a damn thing. Download this audience persona template. Fill it out, then come back. I’ll wait.
Waiting…
Ok! Now that you know who you’re marketing to, you can thinking about when and how to market.
If your audience is 15 to 24 year olds with no kids and get the majority of their media from their smart phones, you’re probably wasting money on radio ads that run at 6am. What is strategic marketing for this audience? Not what it is for an older audience.
If your audience is 65+ and gets the majority of their media from the radio, TV, and newspaper, those radio ads suddenly make sense.
These are obviously stereotypical examples, but you get the idea.
The best part about these methods is it won’t cost you much. You’ll be marketing strategically before you know it.
Go out there and market with purpose! Or click here and let us do it for you 🙂
