Any small business needs a marketing plan not only to familiarize people with the fact that your business exists but also to help it succeed over time. Here are a few pointers that help explain the role of marketing strategies in the success of your business.
1. It helps you obtain funding
When you have a set marketing strategy, you essentially are in a position where you know your target customer, know the market you’re operating in, know what kind of sales you can hope for and know what kind of money you need to spend on marketing to boost business. This kind of knowledge would be vital in obtaining funding from investors.
2. It states your business purpose and mission
A good marketing strategy effectively works around a clear purpose and mission. For example, if your business sells outdoor sporting/adventure gear and your marketing strategy includes launching new products in spring every year and offering discounts every fall, you would be able to know when you need to order new stock and when you need to make the big push and try to clear existing stock.
3. It helps you present a good situational analysis
No marketing strategy can be developed without taking various factors into account. When you create a marketing strategy, you effective collect information related to market conditions that affect your business, current events, trends and other external factors along with a financial analysis, information about your distributor network and competition, your target market and current/future products or services. Through a study of these factors, you are able to better gage your exact current position in the market.
4. It lets you fine tune your tactical programs
To ascertain whether you have met your established sales goals and objectives, you only need to look at the current marketing strategy. A marketing strategy allows you to gauge how successful the marketing campaigns for certain products and services offered by your business have been and this helps in fine tuning future marketing and business tactics too.
5. It helps you set a budget more properly
If you have used marketing strategies throughout the existence of your business, you would be able to keep a keen eye on what you are spending on marketing, whether the existing marketing budget is sufficient or needs to be increased, how the marketing team is performing and how effective previous marketing schemes have been.
