Strategy is where business begins. Developing a strategy involves drawing on your knowledge, practical experience and creative thinking to create an action plan for business success.
Your marketing strategy should focus on identifying your business goals and then working out how specific marketing activities will help you to achieve those goals.
You also need to consider how you are going to monitor and measure the success of specific marketing activities. In order to determine if a course of action is effective in achieving the desired results with the target audience, there needs to be procedures in place for evaluation. The ultimate measure of success is when a strategy or campaign delivers positive results to your bottom line.
Depending on factors such as the size of your practice, time and resource investment allocated to marketing, commitment to generating brand awareness, etc. you will need to tailor a marketing and communications plan to suit the needs of your business and your clients.
You may be in a period of rapid growth and it may be feasible for you to adopt and implement strategies in all the areas listed above. Conversely, you may be in a period of stability and satisfaction and chose to implement only certain elements of marketing and communications and ignore everything else.
The key to success is to tailor the plan to suit your business, and adopt the elements that fit in with your company vision and goals for the future.
Components of a marketing plan
The components of a marketing plan may include all or some of the following:
- Marketing
Your marketing strategies may include direct marketing, up-selling services to existing clients, re-activating latent clients, developing marketing materials such as brochures or developing key messages for specific projects.
- Communications
Your external communications strategies may include generating standard templates for consistency, client care programs or client correspondence. Your internal communications strategies may include staff surveys, team meetings or team building.
- Public Relations
Your public relations strategies may include generating brand awareness, networking, customer service, client entertainment or corporate communication.
- Events
Your events strategies may include conducting your own events, sponsoring events organised by other organisations/companies or hosting clients at events.
- Media
Your media strategies may include incidental media coverage, responding to government legislation and key issues discussed in the media, advertorial or media launches.
- Publications
Your publications strategies may include launching your own newsletter or e-newsletter or re-branding your existing publication.
- Advertising
Your advertising strategies may include undertaking a targeted advertising campaign, taking advantage of distress advertising rates, attracting specific advertisers to your publications or local advertising.
- Relationships
Your relationship strategies may include focusing on high net worth clients or relationship marketing.