Is your business struggling with developing a marketing communications strategy? Our Junior PR Executive, Georgina, shares her top tips for how to develop the right strategy for your business and its goals.
Firstly, it’s important that every business develops a marketing communications strategy to help achieve its targets. Marketing results don’t just happen overnight, they come from carefully thought out and executed plans, which are created by marketing professionals or agencies. The proof is in the pudding as data shows organised marketers are 674% more likely to report success.
The more time spent creating a clear, targeted strategy, the more opportunities you can create to sell and get your brand out there.
What is a marketing communications strategy?
A marketing communications strategy is a plan of how your business is going to covey certain messages to your target consumer through different mediums.
A marketing communications strategy depends on four elements:
- Message
- Medium
- Time
- Target
Your strategy should be a set of tools and processes that help you to develop and deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time, through the right channel.
Why do I need a marketing communications strategy?
Now you know what your marketing communications strategy depends on, let’s move onto why they are essential for marketing success. An effective marketing communications strategy will:
- Communicate directly with your target audience
- Help create realistic forecasts and budgets for marketing activity
- Keep your activity consistent and relevant
- Set objectives and measure return on investment (ROI)
- Create brand familiarity and loyalty
- Communicate values consistently and effectively
Through developing a marketing strategy, whether you are working with a marketing or communications agency, or an in-house team, you can define exactly what your business is trying to achieve and the message it would like to send out.
Top tips for developing a marketing communications strategy
But where to start? Here are our top tips to get the ball rolling on your own marketing communications strategy:
- Know your audience
- Estimate your ROI and determine your objectives accordingly
- Ensure all your messaging is consistent
- Choose a marketing mix that suits your audience
- Measure the effectiveness of your marketing
- Manage leads and client data
It’s important that your strategy is relevant and targeted accurately.
Data shows that Instagram is the second most popular social media platform after WhatsApp in 2022, so this would be a great platform to use within your marketing mix, if your target audience is active on Instagram. It’s always worth putting in the time to research where your audience spends time before you start planning.
If your target audience is over the age of 65, then you may choose to use direct mail or door drops as part of your marketing mix. Age UK found that 4.2 million people aged 65 plus in the UK have never used the internet. Therefore, if you focussed all your efforts into social media marketing to reach this target age group, you might not achieve the desired results which could damage your ROI.
Creating a robust and successful marketing communications strategy can take time and expertise to get it right. Consider working with an external expert to ensure you are exploring all possible avenues for success!
If you need any extra help, in developing a marketing communications strategy for your business you can speak to our team.
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