For your business to thrive, it’s important to create a marketing strategy that complements your growth strategy. The growth strategy is your overall plan to expand the business to its full potential while the marketing strategy helps amplify that. 

Making sure that these two work hand in hand may sound simple. But it actually requires thorough research and planning. 

Why you need a marketing strategy

Connect with customers better

When you develop a marketing strategy, you’ll need to holistically understand the market you’re in. The aim is to narrow down your target customers and have focused campaigns directed to them. From there, you’ll study their demographics, behavior, and interests to get to know them. 

With that information, you can then create strategies to connect with your customers better. These include figuring out where you can find them and how to reach them. You can also relate your products and services to them since you already know their distinct needs and wants. 

Communicate your value proposition 

Your value proposition is what makes your business unique. It’s a single sentence statement defining the benefit of your product or service to your customers. Given the saturated market out there, this also sets you apart from competitors. 

With a marketing strategy, you can see how to effectively communicate your value proposition to your audiences. Since you’ve determined who and where your customers are, you can quickly identify the channels where they’ll be able to see your brand message. Aside from that, you can also tailor-fit the way you deliver your message, depending on the target audience and platform. 

Match and beat the competition

No matter how unique your product or service is, you’ll still have competition out there. Businesses are always vying for customers’ attention, so you have to find a way to rise above the noise. A marketing strategy can give your marketing team a clear direction of how they can grow your business considering the competitive landscape it’s in.

After a careful competitive analysis, you can create a marketing strategy focusing on tactics that competitors aren’t taking advantage of. It can also be an enhanced version of what others are doing. Regardless, having a strategy will give you an edge over the rest. 

How do you want to grow?

Before you work on your marketing strategy, you need to determine first how you actually plan to grow your business as a whole. Do you want to expand by making your products and services available internationally? Or do you want to eventually differentiate and enter other industries?

There are many ways to go about it, so take some time to think it through. Conduct a thorough strategic growth planning review with business experts, such as those from Boardroom Advisors. The effort will be worth it in the end because, once you’ve coined your growth strategy, it’ll be easier to create a strong marketing strategy. 

How can your marketing help your growth?

Whatever growth strategy you plan to do, you’ll still be dealing with customers. If you want to open up new locations, you have to ask yourself where your customers are physically located. If you want to launch a new product line, you have to ask yourself what your customers need.

In order to answer these questions and arrive at favorable results, you’ll need to do market research. It allows you to determine the right customers to target and how you can make your business attractive to them. It also helps you craft strategies to attract customers and convey your brand message. 

Planning for synergy

Once you’ve settled on your growth strategy, you should keep that in mind as you build your marketing strategy. 

1. Study your current position in the market

Your market position refers to how customers perceive your brand against competitors. You can do customer surveys, competitor analysis, and other methods to arrive at an accurate market positioning.

This would be a great time to do a strategic review of your business, as you’ll use key strategy analysis tools before determining your next steps. Once you’ve figured out your position in the market, ask yourself if this is a favorable situation for you to grow your business.

How can you improve your positioning to execute your growth strategy? What marketing objectives and tactics can you use to advance your plans?

For example, if you want to introduce your products to a different country, check if you’re in a strong market position to do so. Will the customers there appreciate your current quality and price? If not, then perhaps you’ll need to consider a different location or adjust something about your products to fit the new market. 

2. Align marketing objectives with your growth objectives

The best way to ensure that your marketing strategy will build off your growth strategy is to align your objectives. These specific goals are the first thing you set before creating a detailed marketing plan. If they’re both focused on the same target, then all the tactics and methods you create will follow suit. 

A good way to do this is to go through all of your growth objectives. For each one, translate them into marketing objectives. Identify how you can break down that growth objective and use marketing to its advantage. 

3. Choose a target market fit for your growth strategy

Your research and review will also equip you with knowledge about your industry, business, and customers. Using that information, determine which target market would offer the most benefit in implementing your growth strategy.

If you’ll eventually need a large amount of capital for your business expansion, then consider finding a niche but high-earning customer base for your campaigns. On the other hand, if you’re focused on gaining widespread awareness, you could tap the mass market with products and services suited to their average income. 

4. Get a marketing expert’s advice

Getting an experienced expert in marketing, such as a Marketing Director, will be highly valuable, especially if you’re still in the strategic growth planning stage. You’ll be able to create smarter strategies with their advice. At the same time, you get to avoid costly mistakes.

What does a Marketing Director do? They study every aspect of your business and the industry it’s in. Coupled with their extensive knowledge and experience, they provide strategic advice that will help you propel your growth through marketing. 

If you’re looking to have one on your team, Boardroom Advisors has Part-time Marketing Directors you can work with so that you can get the necessary support without shelling out too much money. 

At the end of the day, what you will need to remember is that the things you implement to grow your business are all connected, and in order to have that better chance at success, your strategies must be all aligned. 

To summarise, take the time to understand how your business’s marketing strategy and growth strategy overlap and work towards synergising them.  If you need an extra hand in making this happen for your business, you can always work with part-time marketing directors from Boardroom Advisors.