Why is a well–crafted marketing strategy crucial for a small business?
It’s the roadmap and oomph to drive support for your business plan, brand, and ambition. When resources are limited and budgets are tight, a marketing strategy provides focus, saves time and money, and helps you perform better. It prevents the scattering of valuable resources across a range of channels and tactics, while building trust and visibility through consistent brand execution.
The foundation of a good marketing strategy is threefold:
- It digs deep into what makes your customers tick, revealing valuable insights to build stronger connections.
- It strengthens your brand by clarifying what you stand for, ensuring your story resonates with your audience.
- It focuses resources, working them harder to deliver the biggest impact and return on investment.
A marketing strategy articulates the seamless experience your audience will have with your brand—from initial awareness, through marketing funnel touchpoints, to action, loyalty, and beyond. This holistic approach aligns all the moving parts to enhance the customer experience and the value they receive. It’s what gives your brand and business the momentum to move to the next level and foster customer loyalty.
Having a clear roadmap and scope for your marketing, based on performance data and insights, supports confident decision-making. When you understand the current situation, have focus, and know what you need, you can plan and budget for the necessary improvements. Having this information is empowering and leads to better decisions.
A good marketing strategy creates breathing space. It shifts you from the day-to-day overwhelm of spinning plates and a reactive environment, to putting you in the driver’s seat. Having a clear focus and direction for your marketing, with a direct line of sight toward your vision, is hugely motivating.
One of the most exciting aspects of a marketing strategy—though often overlooked—is that its development process can help build teams. The collaborative nature of creating a marketing strategy draws on the knowledge of the wider team, provides a richer understanding of customers, and enables teams to identify areas for improvement. It’s a highly enriching and empowering experience for everyone involved.
Whether you’re updating your website, feeling the pressure to be active on social media, not getting the desired results from your advertising, wanting to grow your customer base, or to strengthen your brand – a marketing strategy can provide direction. What works for big businesses is equally beneficial for small businesses. The advantages of a marketing strategy are multifaceted, and ultimately, it drives success. Speak with a seasoned and proven marketing strategist to coach and support your business to do better.
Roz Rickerby is a marketing strategist and founder of Osinmarketing.nz
OSIN Marketing adopts an outside-in perspective to uncover insights and opportunities to strengthen connections that help shape success.
We’re here for your brand, ambition and growth and we can scale our involvement to you short and long-term needs. Chat with Roz via Osinmarketing.nz
