Marketing Without Strategy is a Waste of Time

If you’ve been with me in the day of  “Women Do Business Differently”, you probably know by now that I am big believer of thinking FIRST Strategy and only then tactics.

I believe one of the biggest traps women fall into is that they rush into marketing tactics in order to “save the day” as they call it.

Do you recognize this pattern in your business?

If you do, don’t beat yourself up – when I started I used to fall into this trap over and over again until I defined for myself what is strategy and what is tactics.

Strategy and tactics must go together in order for your business to reach it’s full potential and achieve the goals that you wish. But for that to happen you MUST FIRST have an effective strategy in place and only then come up with the tactics you wish to use.

If you’ve taken any kind of business training, seminars, webinars or read any books any one of them would have said the same. However, most women entrepreneurs have it hard to get their head around what does it mean marketing strategy.

Let me try and make it simple for you.

Let us start with what it isn’t – Marketing Strategy is NOT:

A wish list
Goals
Mission statement
Set of Values

For me the best definition of what is marketing strategy was given by John Jantsch founder of DuctTapeMarketing.com.

Yes, I know, it’s a man!!! – However, as I said in the seminar, this mistake demands from us to use more of our masculine energy, so nothing wrong in learning it from those that are good at it….

Marketing Strategy is a clear explanation of how you’re going to get there, not where or what there is. An effective marketing strategy is a concise explanation of your stated plan of execution to reach your objectives

Goals and missions and objectives are nice, but how you plan to achieve them – otherwise known as strategy corresponding with a logical set of tactics – is the best way to reach your end result.

A marketing strategy is how you plan to use the available resources to build an ongoing case that your business, products and services are the obvious choice for a narrowly defined ideal customer.

Here are 3 steps you should consider when building your marketing strategy:

1. Know Your Ideal Client

In order to create an effective marketing strategy you must have in mind whom would it attract?

Using your ideal client profile as the basis of your strategy allows you to think very carefully about how you serve them and how you use your tactics to attract them. Without having your focus on this crucial element your marketing strategy would not have clarity and it will be go “all over the place”.

2. You Were Born to Stand Up

Too many women entrepreneurs are trying to “fit in” or to play it the way everyone else does it. This would never work. You need to make sure that you stand out from the rest. However, you need to make sure that your clients recognize this as an advantage and that they value it.

In order to find out what they value all you need to do is… ask them what it is that they value. Once you find it make it your own – add to it your flavor, your colors and identity. Don’t be shy let them connect it with who you are as a person.

If you don’t take this step seriously everything else you do in terms of marketing will be far less effective. That’s how important standing up and being different is.

3. Integrate everything

The last step in the marketing strategy is to put together everything that you’ve done previously – defining your ideal client and creating what is special about you and putting it together into a planned strategy.

For those of you who have registered to the series of  ”Women Do Business Differently” in the coming seminar we will be devoting time to work through this process.

Meanwhile…

Share with us what have you found that works for you in defining your Ideal Client.

Share with us your tips, suggestions or advice how to define your Ideal Client

Share with us in, the comment box below.

If you find this article inspiring, please SHARE it on Facebook, LinkedIn or retweet it, by pushing the button on the left, for the right channel, so more women could benefit from it.

Please share this article with your:



- LinkedIn connections
and blog readers...

Have a magical week! Vered