What marketing strategy challenges do you face?

If you don't have a specific business goal, your marketing strategy is bound to fail. Are you trying to: • gain more market shares • retain clients for longer • generate more leads There are more options but those are the general three directions your marketing strategy should explore. Furthermore, you need to get as granular as possible in describing the desired destination with as many numbers as you can.

In the world of marketing, clarity is power. When your objectives are crystal clear, every decision, tactic, and dollar spent has a purpose and a measurable outcome. While chasing metrics like website traffic or social media followers might seem appealing, they can be misleading if not tied to tangible business outcomes. Instead, focus on objectives directly impacting revenue, customer retention, or brand loyalty. For instance, instead of merely aiming for ‘more website visitors,’ target ‘increasing qualified leads by 20% in the next quarter.’ Such specificity provides direction and sets the stage for measurable success.

🎯 Setting clear objectives is the cornerstone of a successful marketing strategy. It's the guiding star that aligns every campaign, content piece, and communication with your overarching business goals. By defining what success looks like, you can tailor your efforts to not only reach but exceed your targets. Whether it's increasing brand awareness, boosting sales, or enhancing customer engagement, your objectives should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. With these in place, every step you take is a calculated move towards business growth and success.

Defining clear objectives is the base of an effective marketing strategy and crucial for achieving business success. 1. Clarity and Direction: Well-defined objectives provide a roadmap. They clarify what you are aiming to achieve, ensuring that your marketing initiatives aligns with your commercial goals, whether it’s increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or driving sales. 2. Measurable Outcomes: By establishing specific, measurable goals, you can track progress and adjust tactics as needed. This data-driven approach leads to continuous improvement. 3. Resource Allocation: Understanding your goals helps in allocating budgets, manpower, and time to the most impactful initiatives, maximizing your marketing ROI.

I'm big on objectives. They are the foundation of your business. Your business and your marketing plan are built from there. Objectives provide direction, focus, and give you a purpose - a reason to get up in the morning. They can form from your "why?". Objectives don't need to be all hard numbers. You can have soft objectives too. Just make sure they are realistic and achievable, so you don't give up.

Centralize your marketing strategy around your audience, not your product. When you have a complete picture of the people who can use your service — including what are their pain points, how they are purchasing, etc. — then you'll be able to create a plan that connects with them and drives your ROI.

Analyze the customers that have been successful with your product. What do they have in common? Hone in on what they share (certain industries, technologies used, challenges and use cases, regions, etc.) so you can expand your market there. Focusing on a few before trying to go broad is the best way to understand your audience.

Marketing is all about creating confidence. In order to create confidence in the minds of your audience, you need to understand them at a deeper level. With the advent of various digital tools, this has become much more easier. However, the goal is to understand the 'signals' of your audience and interpreting them. For e.g google or any other search engine will provide you with intent signals. Where as social channels such as meta might provide volume based data and potentially a bit of intent too. And then there are hybrid channels such as tiktok that will provide you with intent + demand + social info. Then there are aggregators such as Momentro that will give you a full on view of things. Embrace these tools to understand your audience

The way I see marketing strategy is a circle (and I'm sure so many other marketers can visualize the same). The audience is ALWAYS at the core of each strategy with well-defined parameters and personas outlining each target audience that a brand may wrap product benefits around. Discovering your target audience starts with pinpointing a need and willingness to pay, willingness to pay likely requires some additional research.

Focus on developing a data-driven strategy. You need to have the data to identify your most profitable market segments and capitalise on them. Strengthen your product for that segment and make sure it addresses all of their pain points. That positions you as a brand that understands its customers and can offer them a valuable solution.

Agree with all of this and I'll add one other point. Remember to tune in with your intuitive gut. Does it feel right? Your value proposition needs to sit right with you too. Be unbiased for a moment and ask yourself: Would I buy from me over my competition?

So many clients when I ask about their UVP either can't define it succinctly, or can, and I ask where does that appear on your website. Nowhere! It's critical for someone to be able to make a decision over why to choose you, so be clear what that reason is. Make it easy to find, and clear to them so they can choose YOU!

When it comes to communicating your value proposition and establishing your brand around it, I like StoryBrand's process. They suggest identifying and labeling your customer's biggest pain points, that your product or services can solve, as the "antagonist". In your value prop, you should communicate YOUR company as the hero in the story so customers view you as the one who can come save the day from the bad guy. A classic example of this that we all know and love is the Allstate Mayhem guy. Allstate's value prop is they can protect you from "Mayhem" with good insurance. Pretty simple.

📍Crafting a value proposition is akin to distilling the essence of your brand into a clear, concise, and compelling narrative. It's not merely about stating what you do, but articulating why what you do matters to your customers. A strong value proposition resonates with your audience's needs and desires, positioning your offerings as the ideal solution. It's the promise of value to be delivered, a declaration of intent that invites your audience into a relationship built on the foundation of mutual benefit and trust.

People seldom want “cheap” but always want value for money. I have sold premium products which represented great value for money and would struggle to sell the cheapest (probably due to the fact that if I don’t believe in the product/service, I’ll have a devil of a job convincing you the buyer!!!).

Choosing which channels to utilize can be tricky, but understanding your target audience is key to determining the most effective formats for engagement. In my line of work, I closely work with the Legal Sector, which is predominantly influenced by an older generation. It is imperative to appeal to our audience in a manner they prefer to receive information. When targeting this audience cold emailing wouldn't be an effective strategy as we needed to demonstrate value upfront. Reputation is very important to our audience and so we needed to utilise channels that would allow us to show this It's crucial to understand your target audience and identify the mediums where they are most likely to engage with you

One of my greatest challenge is balancing the marketing mix investment. The tug-of-war between brand building and performance marketing, along with the digital vs. traditional divide, can be particularly tricky. Marketers today are pushed to show immediate results specialy in bearish markets. While performance marketing provides immediate, measurable results, brand building is essential for long-term growth and customer loyalty. Striking the right balance requires a deep understanding of your target audience, business objectives, and the ever-evolving marketing landscape.

Focus on the channels where your audience spends their time, and which show the best results. Pick only as many as you can comfortably manage. Better to have 3 well managed channels than 10 mediocre ones.

The biggest deviation in choosing the right channels for your brand's marketing is: • search or • social My approach, for the last 6 years, has been always social first for new businesses because it's a no-brainer. Consumers show us that they check brands on social they hear from word of mouth to see if they like them or not (what they stand for). But if you are only competing on volume and quality, don't be surprised when customers judge you only by price.

Choosing the right marketing channels involves aligning them with your objectives, audience, and budget. Research each option's pros and cons, and monitor their performance. Focus on a few key channels to create a consistent customer journey. This strategic approach helps avoid missed opportunities, overspending, or underperformance, ensuring you maximize your marketing impact.

The biggest mistakes in measuring results are: • analyzing too early (with little to no data) • A/B testing multiple parameters at the same time • chasing vanity metrics (and big shiny objects) that don't contribute to the success of your business goals

As for me, it is the most important step. And actually it's not a final step. You need to determine your metrics in the beginning. You can not create successful marketing strategy without targets of metrics. And you need to understand how can you measure your targets.

What you can't measure, you can't manage. Data is key. Every business needs a CRM to track the customer journey from the marketing and initial point of contact all the way to the sales and after-sales of your product. That's how you can optimise and make decisions based on data rather than your gut feeling.

Measuring results should be done on a weekly basis with review of being on track or not on track statuses every two weeks or monthly. Measurement of your results should tie back into the OKRs and EOS approach when you set your marketing objectives. Rather than only thinking about traffic and clicks, its really important to think about revenue attribution per channel in a specific period of time. While its not possible to have perfect channel attribution, its important to look at the trends and various indicators to measure your results. Killing channels and strategies which do not work quickly is very important.

➡️Measuring the effectiveness of a marketing strategy is crucial for continuous improvement and success. By implementing a robust analytics framework, businesses can track key performance indicators (KPIs) aligned with their strategic goals. Utilizing tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, marketers can gather actionable data. This data helps in understanding customer behavior, campaign performance, and overall return on investment (ROI). ✔️Regularly reviewing and adjusting strategies based on these insights ensures that marketing efforts are not only effective but also evolve with changing market dynamics.

Do you have a strategy or merely a plan? Whilst many people use these terms interchangeably, there's a significant difference. Strategy is really about making bold choices (what to do and most importantly what *not* to do), defining actions that are coherent and reinforcing each other. What we often see in marketing are just plans (e.g., we will adjust prices, run PPC ads, create social media posts etc.), which in fact lack a strategy, an internal logic that would tie all the actions together.

I think one challenge companies face as they strive to ensure their marketing strategy remains relevant is threading the needle to decide when it's time to completely overhaul their marketing strategy and when only modifications are required. A strategy that is changed too often becomes confusing and unclear while one that resists change altogether and clings to the status quo will quickly become a dinosaur in a dynamic and evolving competitive environment.

As a marketer, the challenges you may encounter include adapting to rapid technological changes. So, marketing is all about: Developing Strategy ->Trying -> Analysis -> Improving...!

Some common marketing strategy challenges include: Identifying Target Audience: Accurately defining and understanding the target market. Differentiation: Standing out in a crowded market with unique value propositions. Budget Constraints: Allocating resources effectively within limited budgets. Measuring ROI: Tracking and measuring the return on investment for marketing efforts. Keeping Up with Trends: Staying current with rapidly changing marketing trends and technologies. Content Overload: Breaking through the noise in a saturated content landscape. Maintaining Brand Consistency: Ensuring consistent messaging across all channels. Customer Retention: Building and maintaining long-term customer relationships.

When devising marketing strategies, I consider: Understanding Target Audience & Navigating Changing Consumer Behavior Engaging in Content Creation for Brand Awareness while Addressing Short Attention Spans Analyzing the Competitive Landscape for Effective Positioning Strategic Resource Allocation for Maximum ROI Managing Data Overload to Extract Meaningful Insights Staying Abreast of Technological Advancements Rigorous ROI Measurement for Informed Decision-Making Establishing Marketing Attribution for Effective Campaign Assessment Adapting to Algorithm Changes Globalization Challenges Ensuring Brand Consistency Across Channels Adhering to Regulatory Compliance in Marketing Practices Combating Innovation Fatigue in Content Strategies