Strategic Marketing, once touted as just for large corporations, is now being applied to businesses across all levels and of all sizes. Becoming increasingly more affordable and less standardiSed, strategic marketing has been heralded as the most important element of the marketing mix for many businesses that are looking for sales acquisition and growth. Without it, marketing activities remain unmeasured and lack appropriate ROI.
What has emerged is a need for businesses of any size to develop strategic marketing plans based on their overall business strategy with key performance indicators ranked according to desired ROI calculators.
There are many reasons to engage in strategic marketing rather than adhoc marketing initiatives that have no set deliverables or KPI’s and are not aligned to the overall business strategy.
It’s like closing your eye’s and hoping that your marketing dollar lands where you want it to at that particular time and produces the results to keep going. The ‘blind-folded’ approach is well known in small business as many companies feel that hiring a marketing consultancy is too expensive and that they are not quite ready to hire a marketing manager in terms of commitment to a fulltime resource and affordability of $100k+ salaries.
The basis of strategic marketing is being able to:
(1) Articulate specific business goals,
(2) Succinctly define target audience or key customers,
(3) Develop campaigns to support core business goals, and
(4) Maximize ROI.
The issue arises for small business owners when ascertaining how they can operate with much more limited resources than their larger counterparts if in fact a marketing strategy actually works. The answer is that small businesses can if their marketing strategy addresses the specific growth and retention needs that are unique to the business.
Global corporations use strategic marketing to communicate initiatives and messaging across the entire company. A small business can use strategic marketing to help shape growth, develop advertising campaigns, public relations, client retention, customer acquisition and manage resources. Implementing strategic marketing into business practices can help business owners target key customers, effectively allocate resources, and improve business processes with more quality results at a lower implementation cost of both monetary and personnel resources.
With the growing trend of freelance consultants and small, highly specialised marketing consulting firms, small businesses are now able to contract a marketing professional to develop a strategic marketing plan and help implement the necessary business structure.
Affordability is key for small businesses when looking at outsourcing their marketing strategy development, but let’s face it, who can afford not to have this in place?
Marketing Eye is helping 10 businesses develop their own marketing strategies with the guidance of a marketing manager who has worked with over 200 companies on developing marketing programs.
All businesses have to do is register to be part of this day of strategic marketing on http://www.marketingeye.com.au/menew/eventform.html and for a small fee that is affordable to every business from a startup, you will walk away with a strategic marketing plan.
Mellissah Smith is the founder of 4 businesses and works as the Chief Executive Officer of Marketing Eye Pty Ltd. Marketing Eye has helped over 200 companies develop marketing programs aimed at growth, expansion and customer retention. A strategic marketing plan is integral to achieving these goals and 10 lucky companies will have the opportunity to explore their businesses in details and develop a strategic marketing plan with the guidance of Marketing Eye.
Showing posts with label startup businesses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label startup businesses. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
$17.99 per day and get a Marketing Manager for 12 months!
Wow! When you get a bunch of marketers in a room - ideas fly.
They come up with some of the most amazing ideas, many that need to stay at the bottom of the pile, but one that I am going to bring right to the top.
Think... same as our Marketing Eye great offer of having a Marketing Eye in your business for 12 months, 2 days per month to develop your marketing strategy and implement it... but for just $17.99 per day*.
Exclusive to startup businesses and micro businesses - people who need to use their money for other purposes. No interest. No hidden costs. Same high quality as usual.
* Contract for services lasts for 12 months, Payments of $17.99 per day for 2 years with a balloon of $10,867.30 at the end.
Find out more by ringing 03 9692 7600
They come up with some of the most amazing ideas, many that need to stay at the bottom of the pile, but one that I am going to bring right to the top.
Think... same as our Marketing Eye great offer of having a Marketing Eye in your business for 12 months, 2 days per month to develop your marketing strategy and implement it... but for just $17.99 per day*.
Exclusive to startup businesses and micro businesses - people who need to use their money for other purposes. No interest. No hidden costs. Same high quality as usual.
* Contract for services lasts for 12 months, Payments of $17.99 per day for 2 years with a balloon of $10,867.30 at the end.
Find out more by ringing 03 9692 7600
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Marketing a startup business
Having been in business for 10 years and totally absorbed by the businesses I already own and operate, I have had little time to think of anything else.
But like a well oiled chain, most of my businesses operate fairly efficiently and effectively without my daily input. These days I am more a problem solver than a day-to-day runner of the business.
Of course, like any business, if sales are down I am the first to roll up my sleeves and get to work and given the state of the economy that has happened a few times over the past 12 months.
When reviewing new business ideas and I have many, I always think about how much work I have to do and what outcome I am looking for. Like any serial entrepreneur, I am always writing business plans on new business ideas and working out whether I think they are viable based on the current market opportunities.
It's an exciting ride when you come up with an idea that you think is going to be big and when I get stuck on a great idea I tend to hide away from the world and explore my creative juices.
Locking myself in my apartment, I spend hours and hours into the night and early morning pondering how this idea can evolve and hopefully explode.
On a flight on Sunday night back from Sydney, I dreamt I had an online sporting business. Now I won't let too many secrets go here because in the short amount of time since Sunday, the idea has gone from idea stage through to business planning and execution - but is currently not live.
Normally I would not have gotten this far so quick, but I realised after the first day that this would end up like many of my great ideas I have had over the years if I was not proactive about it. In the back of the filing cabinet waiting for some attention!
We all know I own a marketing company and web development company so unlike most people I have the resources to 'make it happen' when it comes to developing an online brand.
Naming the company, strategically exploring market potential, building a brand identity, developing a website, creating content and selling advertising and distribution rights are all things that we can do inhouse.
The problem I have is that my staff are always busy. When I give them something to do for myself, they always put it to the backburner and eventually after nagging them continually, I give up and throw it in the bin.
Well, not this time! This idea combines a great love of mine and a commercially viable business. I cannot let this idea go to waste and I have to do it right here, right now.
So, I did what I have never done before. I hired my own company to develop the idea. I have 4 people working on developing the identity, content, media kits, website and looking at alliance partnerships.
In theory, hiring your own company sounds stupid but the reality is at the end of the day, I have a silent partner and why should they pay for my 'great ideas' if they fail. Secondly, I need to make this happen and the only way to do it is to become a client.
It's like a mechanic that needs to fix his car. He never gets around to it. I am pretty much the same. Our company website has taken 1 year to not get started. Yes we have a website, but it needs to be updated, refreshed and clearly express what we do now that we didn't do before.
We seem to continually put this on the backburner because lets face it, paying clients are more important. They keep us in a job and the business alive.
If you can resonate with this reasoning, then think again on how you choose to execute your next great idea and how long it takes you to get it off the ground.
In my case, I am paying $7,000 for a website and $500 per week to have a Marketing Eye run the marketing for the new business.
You never know, it may take off and k-boom! I may need several Marketing Eye's and everyone would be happy.
I can't wait to get this new business off the ground and it's going to be sooner rather than later. I am thrilled to have a new project and really believe that it's going to be one of the best online sites for its field available. Furthermore, the sooner I get it up, the quicker it will be that I make some money.
Happy Startup Businesses!!!!
www.marketingeye.com.au
But like a well oiled chain, most of my businesses operate fairly efficiently and effectively without my daily input. These days I am more a problem solver than a day-to-day runner of the business.
Of course, like any business, if sales are down I am the first to roll up my sleeves and get to work and given the state of the economy that has happened a few times over the past 12 months.
When reviewing new business ideas and I have many, I always think about how much work I have to do and what outcome I am looking for. Like any serial entrepreneur, I am always writing business plans on new business ideas and working out whether I think they are viable based on the current market opportunities.
It's an exciting ride when you come up with an idea that you think is going to be big and when I get stuck on a great idea I tend to hide away from the world and explore my creative juices.
Locking myself in my apartment, I spend hours and hours into the night and early morning pondering how this idea can evolve and hopefully explode.
On a flight on Sunday night back from Sydney, I dreamt I had an online sporting business. Now I won't let too many secrets go here because in the short amount of time since Sunday, the idea has gone from idea stage through to business planning and execution - but is currently not live.
Normally I would not have gotten this far so quick, but I realised after the first day that this would end up like many of my great ideas I have had over the years if I was not proactive about it. In the back of the filing cabinet waiting for some attention!
We all know I own a marketing company and web development company so unlike most people I have the resources to 'make it happen' when it comes to developing an online brand.
Naming the company, strategically exploring market potential, building a brand identity, developing a website, creating content and selling advertising and distribution rights are all things that we can do inhouse.
The problem I have is that my staff are always busy. When I give them something to do for myself, they always put it to the backburner and eventually after nagging them continually, I give up and throw it in the bin.
Well, not this time! This idea combines a great love of mine and a commercially viable business. I cannot let this idea go to waste and I have to do it right here, right now.
So, I did what I have never done before. I hired my own company to develop the idea. I have 4 people working on developing the identity, content, media kits, website and looking at alliance partnerships.
In theory, hiring your own company sounds stupid but the reality is at the end of the day, I have a silent partner and why should they pay for my 'great ideas' if they fail. Secondly, I need to make this happen and the only way to do it is to become a client.
It's like a mechanic that needs to fix his car. He never gets around to it. I am pretty much the same. Our company website has taken 1 year to not get started. Yes we have a website, but it needs to be updated, refreshed and clearly express what we do now that we didn't do before.
We seem to continually put this on the backburner because lets face it, paying clients are more important. They keep us in a job and the business alive.
If you can resonate with this reasoning, then think again on how you choose to execute your next great idea and how long it takes you to get it off the ground.
In my case, I am paying $7,000 for a website and $500 per week to have a Marketing Eye run the marketing for the new business.
You never know, it may take off and k-boom! I may need several Marketing Eye's and everyone would be happy.
I can't wait to get this new business off the ground and it's going to be sooner rather than later. I am thrilled to have a new project and really believe that it's going to be one of the best online sites for its field available. Furthermore, the sooner I get it up, the quicker it will be that I make some money.
Happy Startup Businesses!!!!
www.marketingeye.com.au
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