Knowledge is key to running a successful business, knowledge about your customers, your competitors, your own operation and the wider business environment. A SWOT analysis will help you gather the information you need to make a full and thorough assessment of your business and your market. A SWOT analysis is a simple but powerful tool for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your operation and the opportunities and threats you face in your market. It will give you a clear picture of how well your business is running and the wider marketing and sales environment you are operating in. Business analysis - your strengths and weaknesses Identifying your companies strengths and weaknesses should be straightforward, particularly if you talk to a range of people when putting your SWOT analysis together. If you have employees, you'll find they have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. Customers, suppliers and other business partners can also give you feedback on your performance. Work through a list of the different elements of your operation. For example, finance, staffing, operations and marketing are key areas you can examine. Your SWOT analysis will be more useful if you look at your strengths and weaknesses in terms of what you are trying to achieve and if you compare yourself with your key competitors. Where do you have a competitive edge - or a problem? Market analysis - opportunities and threats You should also talk to employees, customers, suppliers and other business partners about the main opportunities and threats facing your business. Ask them about all the people and organisations that affect your business and how they are changing. Competitors, customers, suppliers and distributors will all have an impact on how successfully you trade. You should then assess the broader business environment and how it is changing using a PEST analysis:
A good PEST analysis can provide you with a strong foundation for an effective marketing strategy. Carrying out and using a SWOT analysis A brainstorm with employees may well be the best starting point for your SWOT analysis. You'll have to be open-minded and willing to accept some criticism of your business, but remember, the idea is to get a realistic view. Likewise, ask your customers for their honest feedback about your products and service standards. If you want to take a more formal approach to SWOT analysis, you could pay for professional help or get involved in a benchmarking study. Whichever approach you choose, however, your assessment must lead to an action plan. This should focus on how you exploit opportunities that play to your strengths and how you address weaknesses in your business in order to deal with threats that face you. Your marketing strategy should also aim to protect your business against threats. Building strong relationships with customers and making sure that your products and customer service stand out can be key elements of your defence against the competition.
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A marketing plan sets out how you are going to put your marketing strategy into practice. The marketing plan ensures that everyone in the business knows what you are trying to do and what they need to do to make it happen. Include objectives, budgets and deadlines in your marketing plan An effective marketing plan must set clear objectives that will help you towards your longer-term strategic goals. Where your marketing strategy includes targeting a particular customer segment, for example, your marketing plan should have specific, measurable objectives for helping you achieve this goal, such as increasing sales by a target percentage. Setting deadlines and agreeing marketing budgets to work with helps you focus on your priorities and commit to achieving them. You should make sales forecasts and targets a key part of your marketing plan and feed them into your overall business plan. But other performance measures could be just as important. For example, you might set targets for numbers of enquiries, numbers of new customers, average transaction value, and so on. Or you might simply wish to maintain positive cash flow. You can choose targets like these to reflect your strategic goals. They can also help you identify where your marketing is - and isn't - working; for example, if enquiry levels meet targets but sales do not. Planning your marketing Your day-to-day business marketing activities are likely to be focused on communicating with existing and potential customers. Your marketing plan should set out when and how you will do this. Start building a schedule by identifying key times of the year - for example, when business customers plan the next year's budget or seasonal purchasing peaks (such as Christmas). Time your marketing campaigns to fit with these dates and look for other opportunities, such as trade exhibitions, that you can take advantage of. If there are significant gaps in your marketing schedule, fill them out with cost-effective activities to help maintain customer awareness. You might send out a newsletter, for example. If you rely heavily on a fairly small number of important customers, consider developing individual account management plans for them. Rather than mailshots and other forms of general marketing communications, key accounts merit regular phone calls, meetings, business entertainment, and so on. Marketing mix As well as marketing communications, your marketing plan should span the full mix of marketing activities. Developing new products and building your distribution network might be important parts of your strategy, for example. You will also need to plan carefully for any price increases or tactical moves such as an end-of-season sale. You might also want to strengthen your marketing capabilities. Note in your marketing plan whether you intend to give staff sales training or introduce new customer relationship management (CRM) technology. Maybe you need to introduce more efficient systems or measure customer satisfaction. Including activities like these in your marketing plan helps ensure that they are identified as priorities and that you dedicate time and money to them. Marketing Strategy is the fundamental goal of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. A marketing strategy will help you identify your best customers, understand their needs and implement the most effective marketing methods. Every time you speak to someone about your business you are involved in marketing. Any conversation about your firm is an opportunity to promote your business and increase sales. A marketing strategy will help you focus. It will identify the different ways you can talk to your customers, and concentrate on the ones that will create most sales. It tells you what to say, how to say it and who to say it to in order to make more sales. Because timing is critical, it will tell you when to say it, too. Marketing strategy: objectives Your marketing objectives will focus on how you increase sales by getting and keeping customers. To explain how to do this, experts talk about how best to package your products and services, how much to charge for them and how to take them to market. A marketing strategy will help you tailor your messages and put the right mix of marketing approaches in place so that you bring your sales and marketing activities together effectively in an effective marketing plan. Marketing strategy: knowing your customers A successful marketing strategy depends on understanding your customers, what they need and how you can persuade them to buy from you. There's no substitute for knowledge. Experience and regular two-way communication will tell you a lot about your customers. But targeted market research will build a more detailed picture of customer segments with similar needs. It will help you understand how to target these people so you're not wasting time on people who aren't interested in your offer. But you'll also need to understand how your market works - where do your customers find out about your offer, for example? Your strategy should even tell you how you measure up against the competition and what new trends to expect in your market. Marketing strategy: making a plan A marketing plan explains how to put your strategy into action. It will set marketing budgets and deadlines, but it will also tell you how you're going to talk to your target customers - whether that's through advertising, networking, going to trade shows, direct marketing, and so on. Crucially, it will tell you when to talk to your customers. Timing your activities to fit their buying cycles will save money and maximise sales. Finally, your marketing plan should look to the future: it should outline how you follow up sales and what you're doing to develop your offer. As with any plan, progress should be regularly measured and reviewed to see what's working and what isn't, so you can set new targets as your market changes. |
AuthorLisa Hunter is an experienced Marketing, Events and Project Manager. She has over 10 years’ experience working in the IT and marketing industry, delivering strategic marketing support and managing creative projects for a wide-range of clients. In this blog she shares her knowledge and experiences…we hope you enjoy it. Archives
June 2019
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