Free Framework for developing a marketing strategy
First things first
Googling "marketing strategy" often gives articles with lazily arranged activities or inspirational campaign case studies without an explanation of what a strategy is and how you know if you have good ones. If you want a list of a possible activities or campaign case studies, follow those links. However, if you really do want a real strategy that is both measurable and executable, this article hopes to put a framework together to do just that.
Understand the problem
The first step to solving any problem effectively is to understand the problem that you have as deeply as possible, but no deeper. If you're here, chances are you aren't hitting the volume of sales you need. It could be a more nuanced problem like a lack of brand recall or product wastage due to packaging but let's go with the first problem for generality's sake.
Not hitting your sales targets is a symptomatic problem, not a root problem and that's the first thing that you should realize. There are several factors of different degrees of complexity that go into ensuring sales targets are hit and more often than not, it's one or more of these factors being disrupted that leads to a dip in volume. Understand what those factors are.
It could be a market condition like a global trend downward in the category, it could be a more localized issue like the entrance of a new, well financed competitor penetrating the market or it could be that your marketing budgets were slashed, reducing your capacity for penetration and retention, it could be a change in the formula or the structure of a product that is leading customers to switch or it could be the lack of investment in distinct brand assets that reduce the salience of the product in the mind of the consumer.
These problems stem from varying strata and identifying what scale of problem you are trying to solve is crucial to knowing if your action is going to be transformative, corrective or reactive.
Define the solution, simply.
Once you understand the nooks and crannies of the problem and the scale of it's complexity, you need to define a solution. Generally the solution varies greatly based on not only the problem but also the stakeholders propensity for risk or lack there-of. In a situation where the global market is in decline, stakeholders with a low appetite for risk might go on the defensive and try to cut their losses while stakeholders with higher appetites for risk might move a component of their marketing and distribution budgets to R&D for an alternative solution.
The take away is that there is no right answer. This isn't a GCE examination. At the end of the day, what problem you choose to solve and the kind of solution that you come up with is a judgement call - you can only be more or less informed. It's the difference between a guess and an educated guess.
Once you have this solution, you need to to simplify it as much as possible, but no simpler. This format works rather well.
Get [who] to [do what] by [what means].
This is called a Job-to-be-done or a J2BD. The reason for doing this exercise is to provide focus to the marketing department without diverging actvities scattering efforts and achieving nothing. This is what you will refer to for the duration of the strategy and needs to be simple enough to communicate to anyone regardless of educational qualifications.
This can be done for upto 3 things depending on your investment but the smaller that figure the better. Splitting investment across too many things will yield poor returns across the board. These two steps are absolutely crucial and can take months to accurately define.
An example J2BD for a website design company who provides easy to use CMSes would be
"Get companies with poorly designed websites to subscribe to our web design services by offering them a DIY CMS."
The brilliance of this statement is that you know exactly who you're talking to and how to find them. You know which product is being offered and you further focus on customers who need a CMS they can use themselves.
Compared against a list of lazily put together activities masquerading as strategy (like the one above) this may not seem like it's instantly actionable and it's not. If you want instant gratification and quick fixes strategy isn't the way to go. I guarantee the focus that you gain from this activity is potentially transformative on an organizational scale. Good luck.
If you want to learn about how a marketing campaign can be developed try this article.
If you want to learn more about strategy, try this book and explore the recommended books around it and if you want to watch a video, try this instead.
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Dhyresh Mendis
is a Graphic Designer specializing in Brand Identity Design. His love for structures and systems has sent him on a journey to understand the fields that Identities support at great depth - Marketing and Brand Building.
First things first
Googling "marketing strategy" often gives articles with lazily arranged activities or inspirational campaign case studies without an explanation of what a strategy is and how you know if you have good ones. If you want a list of a possible activities or campaign case studies, follow those links. However, if you really do want a real strategy that is both measurable and executable, this article hopes to put a framework together to do just that.
Understand the problem
The first step to solving any problem effectively is to understand the problem that you have as deeply as possible, but no deeper. If you're here, chances are you aren't hitting the volume of sales you need. It could be a more nuanced problem like a lack of brand recall or product wastage due to packaging but let's go with the first problem for generality's sake.
Not hitting your sales targets is a symptomatic problem, not a root problem and that's the first thing that you should realize. There are several factors of different degrees of complexity that go into ensuring sales targets are hit and more often than not, it's one or more of these factors being disrupted that leads to a dip in volume. Understand what those factors are.
It could be a market condition like a global trend downward in the category, it could be a more localized issue like the entrance of a new, well financed competitor penetrating the market or it could be that your marketing budgets were slashed, reducing your capacity for penetration and retention, it could be a change in the formula or the structure of a product that is leading customers to switch or it could be the lack of investment in distinct brand assets that reduce the salience of the product in the mind of the consumer.
These problems stem from varying strata and identifying what scale of problem you are trying to solve is crucial to knowing if your action is going to be transformative, corrective or reactive.
Define the solution, simply.
Once you understand the nooks and crannies of the problem and the scale of it's complexity, you need to define a solution. Generally the solution varies greatly based on not only the problem but also the stakeholders propensity for risk or lack there-of. In a situation where the global market is in decline, stakeholders with a low appetite for risk might go on the defensive and try to cut their losses while stakeholders with higher appetites for risk might move a component of their marketing and distribution budgets to R&D for an alternative solution.
The take away is that there is no right answer. This isn't a GCE examination. At the end of the day, what problem you choose to solve and the kind of solution that you come up with is a judgement call - you can only be more or less informed. It's the difference between a guess and an educated guess.
Once you have this solution, you need to to simplify it as much as possible, but no simpler. This format works rather well.
Get [who] to [do what] by [what means].
This is called a Job-to-be-done or a J2BD. The reason for doing this exercise is to provide focus to the marketing department without diverging actvities scattering efforts and achieving nothing. This is what you will refer to for the duration of the strategy and needs to be simple enough to communicate to anyone regardless of educational qualifications.
This can be done for upto 3 things depending on your investment but the smaller that figure the better. Splitting investment across too many things will yield poor returns across the board. These two steps are absolutely crucial and can take months to accurately define.
An example J2BD for a website design company who provides easy to use CMSes would be
"Get companies with poorly designed websites to subscribe to our web design services by offering them a DIY CMS."
The brilliance of this statement is that you know exactly who you're talking to and how to find them. You know which product is being offered and you further focus on customers who need a CMS they can use themselves.
Compared against a list of lazily put together activities masquerading as strategy (like the one above) this may not seem like it's instantly actionable and it's not. If you want instant gratification and quick fixes strategy isn't the way to go. I guarantee the focus that you gain from this activity is potentially transformative on an organizational scale. Good luck.
If you want to learn about how a marketing campaign can be developed try this article.
If you want to learn more about strategy, try this book and explore the recommended books around it and if you want to watch a video, try this instead.
Dhyresh Mendis
is a Graphic Designer specializing in Brand Identity Design. His love for structures and systems has sent him on a journey to understand the fields that Identities support at great depth - Marketing and Brand Building.