I enjoy working on marketing strategy because it’s an opportunity to take stock of where your business is and put in place a plan to take you forward. It pulls together all the parts of your business plan and brand strategy and helps you work out how to communicate those things to your audience.

I also enjoy a "you might need help if...", so here are a few around marketing strategy.

You might need help if...

1. You haven’t done any marketing before and don’t know where to start

Your business is new or you’ve relied on word of mouth until now. You find yourself spending quite a lot of time explaining your offering to potential clients. Wouldn’t it be great if marketing could do some of that heavy lifting for you?

You know what, it can! A marketing plan can help you identify which marketing activities will help you reach your audience and help you determine what content would be most useful.

2. Your marketing is haphazard and you don’t have a plan

You are doing some marketing, but you don’t understand how your different activities fit together, you’re not sure what you should be achieving and therefore you’re not sure if it’s working.

It sounds like you need to revisit your brand strategy and take another look at your audience. This will help you look with fresh eyes at what you’re already doing and see if it is actually serving you and if you’re doing it right for your goals.

3. Your business is fine but your marketing isn’t working

Your business is solid but you don’t feel that you’re getting a good bang for your buck in terms of marketing. Is that because it’s not being implemented right to achieve the desired results, or is it because your expectations of what you can get from your activities are off? Or both?

It sounds like you need to set some goals for your marketing and make sure that they align with your business goals and strategy. Marketing can be a great engine for business growth but only if it's pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, you're on a road to nowhere.

4. You want to grow and you need help getting to the next level

You have big ambitions for your business but you’re not sure how to grow your audience and what more you should be doing. Until now you have worked mainly through referrals, networking, and some advertising. You have heard about digital marketing but you don't really know what it is or what you should do.

Building a solid marketing plan that moves you from an analog world to a digital one can give you focus and consistency in your marketing. There is a myriad of different digital marketing channels out there, not to mention the new social media platforms that seem to spring up on a monthly basis. By looking in-depth at your audience and your business priorities you can create a plan that will give you a path to follow to build sustainable growth over time.

5. Your business changing rapidly and you need marketing to keep up

Businesses evolve and particularly over the last year, we’ve all had to adapt our business somewhat to changing circumstances. Your business has changed, or your customers have changed but marketing is still doing the same old thing. When you’re down in the weeds of day-to-day delivery, working out the next social media post or blog, it can be hard to detect a major shift in the wind direction. And it can be hard to see our own businesses clearly when we’re deep in them.

You need to revisit what your business is about and what you're trying to do. Only if you go back to those basics can you work out what's missing with your current marketing efforts. Is there a business need that's just not being addressed? Do you need to address a new audience?

If any of these situations sound like you, you could probably benefit from an external perspective and someone to give you some fresh ideas. I would love to be that someone.

Get in touch with me through my contact form at the bottom of my homepage or by emailing georgina@crabapplecomms.com.