Marketing Strategy

 

Why Even An Average Marketing Strategy Beats Great Marketing Tactics Every Time

 

by Bob Serling 

Do you want to know the fastest way to improve your marketing results regardless of whether the economy is up, down, or in a holding pattern? Devise a better marketing strategy.

Yes, it really is that simple. Because even an average marketing strategy coupled with good tactics will soundly thrash the best marketing tactics that are driven by a poor marketing strategy.

Keeping your business in a steady growth cycle really has very little to do with the economy. And smart businesses do well in almost any economy because they adjust their marketing strategy accordingly to keep the sales coming in like clockwork.

Start Thinking Strategically

You can think of strategy as the sight on a rifle. If the sight is even slightly out of adjustment, you'll end up wide of the target or you might miss the target altogether. Similarly, strategy is what focuses all your marketing tactics and makes sure you hit the bulls eye.

The problem is, most people don't know how to think strategically. Even most of the so-called experts who attempt to teach strategy are really teaching tactical marketing. 

For example, a well known marketing guru is currently promoting a series of expensive strategy setting seminars. But every promotional piece I've seen for his seminars mistake tactics for strategy. For example, he mistakenly identifies defining your USP (unique selling proposition) as being strategic. It isn't - a USP is a marketing tactic.

Here's an example that will illustrate what I mean. Burger King's original USP was "Have it your way". This was an excellent positioning USP Burger King used to differentiate themselves from all the other mass produced fast food burgers. 

But the actual strategy Burger King employed was much bigger than a USP. It was also brilliantly simple. They made the strategic decision to open all their stores within a couple blocks of existing McDonalds locations. Why? Because they knew that people who were coming to the area had already "raised their hands" to identify themselves as customers who buy hamburgers. And they also knew that people get tired of eating at the same place every day.

What were the results of this brilliant strategic move? For many years, Burger King was "eating McDonalds lunch".

A Quick Primer in Strategic Marketing

Here's what you need to do to develop powerful marketing strategies that will produce major breakthroughs for your business. It's a reasonably simple process, consisting of the following four steps:

STEP 1 - Deep Research
STEP 2 - Determine your company/product DNA
STEP 3 - Determine your customer DNA
STEP 4 - Innovation - Create a breakthrough strategy

Let's take a look at how you carry out each step.

STEP 1 - Deep Research

Find out everything you can about your market, your customers, your competitors, your industry, and all the factors that effect or influence these things. This involves a deep level of research, not just assuming that you already know everything there is to know. From many years of experience, I can assure you that the most brilliant strategies are always the result of deep, thorough research.

STEP 2 - Determine your company/product DNA

What do you stand for? How do you want your customers to experience doing business with you or using your products? Take your company's core values and the core values inherent in your product and state them in 1-3 sentences.

STEP 3 - Determine your customer DNA

Deep below the surface, there's an essential value a customer expects to get from buying your product. This is how McDonalds fought back and beat Burger King. They realized that people weren't coming just for fast food or for an inexpensive meal. The majority of their customers were coming in with their families. So they took this essential value and deeply embedded it as part of their operating philosophy. The Happy Meal was born and a legion of loyal customers were captured by the heart strings forever.

The essential value your customer expects isn't always apparent. In fact, it can be quite elusive and requires digging beyond the obvious to identify it. But when you do identify it, the payoff will be immense.

STEP 4 - Innovation - Create a breakthrough strategy

In this step, you take all the input from the previous three steps and create the single best marketing strategy for your business or product. Your goal is to blend the results of your research, your company/product DNA, and your customer DNA into a breakthrough marketing strategy. In order to do this, you'll need to use brainstorming techniques. You can find these by plugging the term "brainstorming" into any search engine.

I have my own proprietary brainstorming techniques that my team uses both for my business and for our clients. Soon I'll be offering an ebook on the entire strategic marketing process, but for now just about any brainstorming technique will do.

Brainstorming is done best as a group. If your business is larger, try to include people from marketing, finance, operations, shipping, and many other disciplines that you might not normally include in planning sessions. You'd be surprised how valuable their contributions can be.

If you own a smaller business, enlist the help of friends or business associates. Ask the following question:

"What kind of breakthrough would make all our competitor's have to scramble to keep up with us?"

When you've come up with the answer to this question, you'll be well on your way to substantially increasing your sales and profits. 

Need a powerful marketing strategy that will get the results you really want? Find out how our strategic marketing services have helped businesses double their profits in record time. To get all the details, visit Bob Serling's ProductLab.com