Six essential elements to include in your next marketing strategy

I’m sure we’ve all experienced it as there's so much of it about at the moment -

Impersonal…
Unempathetic...
Unwanted!

I'm talking about the plethora of unsolicited emails, advertising posts, and messages that we receive for products and services that would never appeal to us.

This 'spam' exists because of bad targeting - not understanding your target audience, their pain points, and how you can provide a solution.

By defining who your ideal customer is and how to engage with them, will give you the power to one day, convert them into loyal customers.

So, before you invest any time, resources, and hard-earned cash in your marketing and sales strategy – understand who your market is!

Sounds crazy, as it’s one of the fundamentals of growing a profitable business, BUT…

I’m seeing and hearing some horror stories at the moment where some businesses are getting it so wrong.

It’s a well-known fact the people will always choose business brands they know, like, and trust.

But how do we understand more about our target audience – and then know how to engage with them to build that trust?

Here are my six essential elements to include in your next marketing strategy

👉 Decide what you want your marketing to achieve i.e. Brand Awareness; Lead Generation; Sales Promotion; etc.

You can align these to your marketing objectives (and please make them SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely)

👉 Define your niche target audience – who are they? What are their interests? What are their roles and responsibilities (if selling into B2B);

AND what are their pain points – challenges, problems, issues – they encounter on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even annual basis.

👉 Choose the most appropriate media to communicate with them i.e. website, social media, email, PR, etc. You will have hopefully researched this information when identifying and defining your target audience

👉 Don’t forget the 5 E’s when creating your marketing content – Engage, Empathise, Entertain, Educate and Encourage – have a look back at my previous blog posts for more information.

👉 Use a good balance of words and imagery (inc. video) – we don’t all consume media in the same way!

👉 Consider your call to action – what you want people to do when they experience your marketing – download? Email? Free trial? Call you?

It’s fairly pointless spending all this time, resources, and hard-earned cash if you’re not asking your target audience to do something when they’ve consumed your content.