Strategy & Funnel Building

Inbound marketing is the act of casting a net of content and other marketing techniques that lead customers to reach out to your business first. Whether that is a quote request, a phone call, or other ways prospects contact you first.

This is typically a preferred method for most businesses opposed to outbound marketing which would involve cold calling, prospecting, etc.

In Marketing, BOFu means the bottom of the funnel. These are when prospects are “hot” leads or likely to buy. These are your qualified leads that need a little more to push through to the finish line.

Strategic marketing management is the application of the principles of strategic marketing to the management of a company. It involves developing a market-oriented strategy and then implementing that strategy through marketing programs and initiatives.

The goal of strategic marketing management is to create value for the company by attracting and retaining customers.

• Start with your business goals and objectives.
• Understand who you want to sell to.
• From there decide where that person would potentially find your business. Identify how much that will cost to get in front of them.
• Estimate how many customers would have to see your advertisement in order to purchase.
• Calculate how much you’ll make once that sale comes through.
• Identity whether that channel is affordable for you to acquire your customers
• Define what tasks need to be completed in order to operate that campaign
• Set clear measurements of whether the campaign was successful
• Once the campaign is over, update and revisit your plan

Strategic marketing is essential because it helps businesses focus their resources on the right things. By identifying their target market and understanding the needs of that market, companies can create marketing campaigns that are more likely to be successful. Additionally, by setting goals and tracking progress,

What Is a Marketing Strategy?

A marketing strategy refers to a business’s overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their products or services.

• value proposition
• key brand messaging
• ideal customers

Historically, marketings strategies have included “4 P’s”

1. Product
2. Price
3. Place
4. Promotion

Product (Or Service):

What do you have to offer? What value are you providing to the market? Before moving on, make sure you know what your product/service is.

Price:

How much are you asking for your product/service? What is the price point that will work best for your business and its goals? Will your customers pay that price to purchase your product?

Place:

Where does your product or service fit in the market? How will you reach your target market?

Promotion:

How will you show people your product/service exists, how will you convince them to use your product over the alternatives in the market, and how much will you need to spend in order to acquire new customers.

Quick Summary:

• A marketing strategy is a company’s plan for attracting new consumers and converting them into customers.
• A company’s value proposition should be the focus of marketing initiatives.
• The aim of a marketing campaign is to gain and communicate a durable competitive advantage over rivals.

Understanding Marketing Strategies

Your marketing strategy needs to directly align with your company’s values, messaging, budget, and vision. By building an authentic plan that fits with the above items, your should be able to attract the right people for what you’re offering.

A key piece of building a marketing strategy once you know what you’re selling is to define who you’re selling to. If you know who you’re selling to, you can then move on when that person would be looking to buy. Are they making purchases frequently? Is it a one-time thing? Is it a subscription?

Once you map out the buying cycle of your ideal customer you can then start to think about how that individual makes their decision to buy. What is their intention?

Do they have an immediate need? Ie. My tooth hurts, I need to go to the dentist. Or is it more awareness-driven? If someone saw an ad that showed they could have whiter teeth, would that trigger them to look for more information?

Once you understand the time and place your customers would be buying your product you can start to plan out the best areas you can reach these customers. This could be Google PPC(Pay Per Click) campaigns. Typically this channel will work when you’re targetting users who are looking specifically to solve a ‘pain-point’. I have a need, I go to google to search my need, and choose the service that looks like it will best solve my need.

After you have a clear idea of what your high-level marketing strategy is to start getting your business in front of the right people at the right time, you can start building out the Plan (Marketing Plan) to define the tactics and day-to-day operations to execute on your strategy.

A marketing agency is a group of marketing professionals who build and execute marketing efforts for clients. Marketing takes many shapes and forms, so not every marketing agency is the same. Some specialize, some do more broad work. Each marketing agency is unique, and it can take time to find the right marketing agency for your needs.

In short, a marketing plan is a document that organizes your marketing strategy into tangible action items in order to achieve your business goals. The plan should be set up with clear timelines and those who are accountable for completing the action items Finally the plan needs to have clear goals to know whether the plan was successful. Try not to overcomplicate the plan, the most important factor in your plan is to have the team aligned in the objectives & work required to accomplish the plan. Make it simple, make it measurable, make it happen.

If you have a small website with only a few pages and aren’t looking at growing significantly, you can likely get by without one. However, if you have a website or business looking to attract a lot of traffic or business, you may need to develop a strategic marketing strategy. This can help you focus your resources on the right things and create campaigns that are more likely to be successful.

ROI stands for “Return on Investment”, this is the measurement of how profitable a marketing initiative was. By measuring ROI you’re able to know which marketing techniques are leading to the most profitable outcome. Which allow for your business to grow in a systematic way.

Digital Marketing is an all-encompassing term that includes marketing methods using digital methods. This can be online advertising, this can be social media, etc.

A strategic marketing agency is a firm that specializes in helping businesses with their strategic marketing. These agencies can help companies with research, planning, implementation, and tracking.

This is a common question, and it does not have a simple answer. In general, you’ll need a website if you want to:

• Grow your business: A website can help you reach more customers and grow your business.
• Build credibility: Customers are more likely to trust businesses with websites. Having a website makes your business look more professional.
• Make it easy for customers to find you: Customers can find your website using search engines like Google, even if they don’t know your business’s name.
• Sell products or services online: A website allows you to sell products and services directly to customers without any middlemen.

If any of these reasons apply to your business, then it’s time to start thinking about getting a website.

KPIs are Key-Performance Indicators. These are the measurements that demonstrate whether you’re on-trend/on track to achieve your objectives. Without KPIs for your marketing initiatives it is very difficult to know whether you’re campaigns are successful or not aside from circumstantial data.

If you don’t have the time, expertise, or resources to develop a strategic marketing strategy on your own, you may want to consider hiring a strategic marketing agency. Our agency can help you with research, planning, implementation, and tracking. We can also help you create goals and objectives for your marketing campaigns while also handling the execution of these campaigns. This allows you and your team to focus on running the business, and our team is held accountable for the marketing strategy’s results.

The biggest thing to keep in mind when you are trying to execute is clearly defining what you want to be done:

• Identify who is responsible for it
• break out the laser-specific steps that need to be completed
• Communicate expectations with the relevant team members/contractors
• Give space for questions
• Follow up and confirm once the deliverables are completed
• Review what went well, what didn’t go well, and what can be done next time
• Use the learnings for future marketing plans/strategies

This is an interesting question and can change over time. Early on starting a business often have to wear multiple hats, and marketer may be one of those roles. As the business grows, usually it is not economical to hire a marketing coordinator or entry-level marketer as one of your first hires. At this time, it may make sense to outsource some of your marketing to an Agency. When the business reaches a stage where it’s necessary to have someone in-house, you can either add additional areas of focus for the marketing team/outsourced agency or go entirely in-house with your marketing department.

As your in-house team grows, it is usually best to hire an outsourced team that can own specific areas such as your paid advertising funnel.

Every business is different, if you’d like to build out a marketing department strategy that will work for the stage you’re at, let us know.

MOFu in marketing means “Middle of the Funnel”. This is is when your customer is in the middles stages of your marketing funnel. These are people in the consideration stage of finding a product or a service. They are looking for solutions and short-listing their candidates.

A marketing plan is an element of your business plan. Your marketing plan should break out how you want to reach your customers, what message you’re going to hit them with, and how are you going to profitably grow your business with affordable marketing strategies. Your business plan should be the all-encompassing document that outlines all areas to successfully operate your business.

Strategic advertising is a process where businesses research, plan, and execute advertising campaigns designed to reach specific goals. Like strategic marketing, strategic advertising helps businesses focus their resources on the right things and create campaigns that are more likely to be successful.

Both strategic marketing and strategic advertising are important for businesses because they help companies attract customers.