Marketing Strategy and Planning for businesses in the South West

Marketing Strategy and Planning

The first step in compiling any marketing strategy is to understand your company’s mission and goals.

For example:

- Who are you and what is the purpose of your business?
- What can you provide to alleviate your potential buyer’s issue?
- How do you wish to be perceived as a brand and what are your company values?

Competitor Analysis

It is vital to look at your competitors in detail and determine where you sit alongside them. I can identify their strengths and weaknesses and look for any opportunities to improve your service.

Your Preferred Buyer

I will also determine your audiences, breaking them down into segments so I can identify specific customers. We can then break this down further by looking at demographics and interests. From here, we can create personas.

Personas are characters created to represent the target audience of your brand. The purpose of personas is to create a reliable and realistic representation of your key audience segments for reference. These representations should be based on qualitative and some quantitative user research and web analytics.

Personas help give you the insight needed to create highly relevant content, posted in highly relevant places.

The purpose of working with personas is to be able to develop solutions, products and services based on the needs and goals of your users. They provide valuable insights that can be used to convey your message to the right audience at the right time in the right format.

My marketing goals for your business:

To raise brand awareness of your business
To increase visits to your website
To build engaged audiences – with whom we can communicate regularly with
To increase conversions on your website
To nurture relationships with your customers and partners
To attract new business
To build a long-lasting and trusted partnership with you

Determine Your Marketing channels

Once your audience sets are established we can decide on the appropriate channels to use to communicate with them. It is important to establish the correct channels and not just every channel available so resources (and budget) are used wisely and not spread too thinly.

There are many marketing channels – social media, emails, blogs, website SEO, press releases, printed literature, on and offline adverts, and brochures to name a few.

We identify the channels we believe will give the best return based on identified audiences. We then measure the successes and failures of each channel and evolve as appropriate.

Marketing Content and Execution

Now that we know who we are targeting and where they are likely to hang out, we can begin to start the creative process of planning campaigns.

We use a marketing activity calendar to highlight relevant promotional dates and events and plot when to launch various content. The activity plan ensures we are always looking to the future so opportunities are not missed and always maximised. A scheduling service such as Buffer or Hootsuite is used to schedule evergreen posts whilst leaving the opportunity for ‘here and now’ posts.

Marketing Budget

The marketing budget agreed upon is taken into account whilst creating all marketing campaigns to ensure we do not exceed limits on money, time and other resources.

Monitoring & Evaluation

The marketing plan is an evolving project that will change and grow as time moves on and we learn more.

It is vital to the success of the business that it can be fluid and adapt to changing environments and social and economic factors. Monitoring our marketing campaigns and evaluating successes and failures will enable me to determine future steps.

I will look at several results including website traffic, website lead generation/conversions, SEO (search engine optimisation) results, social media stats (organic and paid), and email open and click-through rates. I obtain this information from Google Analytics, Mailchimp reports, Buffer/Hootsuite social reports, and Facebook business and social insights.

Over the last 18 months, Michelle has played a pivotal role in supporting WEAF's marketing transformation project. The outcomes of this initiative have resulted in a tangible enhancement of the organization's membership base and its engagement with the Aerospace and Advanced Manufacturing sector that WEAF serves. Michelle's expertise has proven invaluable in fostering the growth of WEAF's value proposition. With a profound understanding of marketing, Michelle has brought strategic insights and practical skills to the project, contributing significantly to its success. Based on her exceptional contributions, we wholeheartedly recommend Michelle's services to any organization seeking expertise in marketing and strategic growth.

Colin Turner

CEO at West of England Aerospace & Advanced Engineering Forum

Your 2-Hour Marketing Audit

What’s involved:

- Identifying where you are now
- Pinpointing where you’d like to be in 12 months
- Identifying your challenges or what’s stopping you from getting there
- Agreeing how you’re going to get there
- Creating an action plan to help you reach your goals