The Focus of a Successful Marketing Strategy

What's the Focus of a Successful Marketing Strategy

"I don't do marketing". It's something that many design business owners quote time and time again, without realising that every time they engage in conversation, or tweet or post a Facebook message about their business that's exactly what they are doing. No matter who you are talking to and no matter who is viewing your message, you have the opportunity to emphasise the positives of your business, ultimately increasing your profits.

As you are undoubtedly engaging in marketing now and again, thinking about your marketing strategy is a logical next step. By spending some time considering how best to communicate with new and existing clients, you can put some steps into practice that will maximize your sales. This marketing strategy will help you to know what to say to whom, and perhaps more importantly when to say it. But what should a successful marketing strategy focus on?

1. Understanding your clients

Putting yourself in the shoes of your clients may sound like something of a cliche today, but without understanding exactly what they actually need you will struggle to persuade them that you can meet their requirements. Some simple two-way conversations with existing clients will go a long way toward helping you to understand them, as will your experience in your own market sector, but without some specific and targeted market research you could struggle to glean the information that you need.

Successful market research will not only help you to understand the needs and wants of your customer-base, but will also solidify your definition of your target market, allowing you to identify those groups of people that will be interested in what you have to offer. As well as providing you with the knowledge that you need to avoid those segments of the population that simply aren't interested.

2. Realistic objectives

Without clients you won't make sales, and without sales you won't make any profit. As such, your marketing strategy should contain some realistic objectives regarding how best to keep existing clients loyal to your brand, while attracting new clients at the same time.

Through this process you will start to realize how best to package what it is that you can offer to your client-base, be it through the message that you are giving out, through the promotional materials that you may plan to circulate, or any other means of marketing.

3. Creating a marketing plan

It's all well and good having a strategy for your marketing success, but without a practical plan designed to put the pieces into action your strategy will fail to see any success. The marketing plan will include all of the detail from the previous two sections, such as information regarding how you plan to go about marketing to existing or new customers. It will also feature very practical bits and pieces, such as budgets for your marketing strategies, and timeframes for their completion.

These are just a few tips to help. Get more help on establishing a marketing plan here.

By Phillip John Reynolds

Photography by StockSource

To request a free copy of Phillip John Reynolds' "Introduction to Internet Marketing" eBook and a free subscription to my "Internet Marketing Tips" newsletter, just simply visit my site http://www.theukegroup.com.

The Interior Design Resource Agency

The Global Leader in Business Information Resources for Interior Designers

Bringing You the Business Behind the Business of Interior Design

+++