Components of a Competitive Marketing Strategy

Do you need help to cut through the noise and reach your target audience? Are your marketing efforts failing to drive conversions and growth for your business? If so, it may be time to re-evaluate your marketing strategy and ensure that it includes all the key components necessary for success in today’s competitive marketplace.

Defining Your Target Audience

The first step in any marketing strategy is identifying your target audience – the customers most likely to connect with your brand and use your services. Understanding who your customers are and what they need allows you to tailor your messaging, products, and services to meet their specific needs and preferences. This can help you connect with your audience on a deeper level and increase the chances of them becoming loyal customers.Narrowing your marketing efforts to target a specific category of people doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be ignoring potential buyers that don’t fit that category. It just means that, while you will still make your products and services available to all potential buyers, you will focus your marketing efforts on the group most likely to be interested in them. This will help you maximize your marketing campaigns’ effectiveness and reach your target audience more effectively.Segmenting your customer base into specific groups based on their needs and characteristics is an important aspect of creating a successful marketing strategy. By identifying these segments through market research and analysis, you can better understand the needs and desires of your customers and tailor your offerings to meet those needs more effectively than your competitors.Targeting and positioning your products and services to the most profitable market segments is also crucial. It’s essential that your product offering satisfies the needs of your chosen target market and that your marketing strategy emphasizes the strengths and unique selling points that will appeal to that market. For example, if a particular segment values quality above all else, then highlighting the superior quality of your products or services in your marketing campaigns will be most effective in reaching them.

Competitor Analysis

A competitor analysis is one of the most critical aspects of your marketing strategy. Depending on how in-depth you want to go, a lot of work goes into a successful competitor analysis. However, all the work is not only necessary, it’s beneficial. Just think about it, how are you meant to outperform your competitors if you don’t know what the metrics are? Performing a competitor analysis will allow you to learn and understand: 

• The market in which you operate
• Your target audience 
• Market forecasting and potential opportunities
• Marketing practices to avoid
• The best marketing practices for your industry
• Competitor products & product development horizons
• Pricing structures 
• Acquisition trends 
• Gaps you can fill where your competitors may fall short

A competitor analysis will help you identify critical information you can use to gain a competitive advantage in your marketing strategy. This is done through thoroughly analyzing your competitors’ products or services, social media presence, marketing strategies, branding, website, etc. You can see what works for them and what may not, and adjust your strategy to get the best ROI. The more you know about your competition, the easier it will be to identify opportunities to outperform them so you can stay on top.However, a thorough analysis that you can actually use includes a lot more than just a quick Google search; there are numerous tools and steps that are available to you and that need to be used. This is where outsourcing comes in handy. A marketing agency or professional marketer will already have all the tools and insights you need to complete a comprehensive competitor analysis. Plus, they can help you set up a strategy that targets the best opportunities in your market. 

Creating Content

There is a widely used phrase in the digital marketing community, “content is king.” Everyone says it, and it’s not just because it’s catchy; it’s because it’s true. Pushy promotional tactics and brash advertisements are a sure way to deter customers in the modern marketing world. Quality content, on the other hand, is a great way to attract relevant audiences.When it comes to your company website, regularly posting SEO-backed blogs can go a long way in getting you relevant traffic and strong leads. Statistics from Demand Metric show that, on average, 90% of businesses use content in their marketing strategies. They further state that websites with blog pages produce 67% more leads per month, and 60% of people are inspired to seek out a product after reading content about it. Your content marketing efforts, however, should not be limited to blog posts and perfectly optimized web pages. The digital age has opened up a lot of content opportunities to help you market your business, including: 

• Guides and White Papers
• Social Media Posts
• Informational Videos 
• Blogs
• Podcasts
• Infographics

While the demand for content is growing, you need to ensure you are prioritizing quality. It is not enough to just post for the sake of posting. You need to make sure that you are posting valuable content to show your customers you are knowledgeable and trustworthy. By creating a Search Insights Report (SIR), you can ensure that your content is worthwhile, valuable to your target audience, and competitive on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Search insights reports are essentially a mix between keyword research reports and content calendars that act as a roadmap for content creation. In addition to your in-depth keyword and topic research, there are a few questions you should ask yourself to ensure you are providing valuable, high-quality content. 

1. Does this content reflect the image your brand is trying to portray?
2. Will the content be useful to your target audience?
3. Does it answer your target audience’s questions?
4. Have you fact-checked?
5. Have you double-checked spelling and grammar?
6. Is your content targeted for the different stages of the customer journey?

Don’t forget to add a compelling and clear call to action at the end of your content. 

KPIs

No marketing strategy would be complete without clearly defined, measurable goals and objectives. All your marketing efforts will mean nothing if they are not measured – how will you know what is working and what is not, how will you know where to adjust your strategy, and how will you know if all of your hard work is actually contributing to your success?  This is why every marketing strategy should include predefined key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to benchmark how well you are achieving your marketing goals. Clear thought and planning need to go into setting your KPIs. You need to consider your long and short-term goals and perhaps even do a SWOT analysis to further help you identify any strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to your marketing strategy and how you can use them to your advantage. If you focus on an arbitrary set of metrics and numbers with no strategy behind them, your marketing efforts will quickly roll off course, and your KPIs will have no value. A number of factors can influence your strategy, including the type of product or service you offer, your customers, your competitors, the resources available to you, and your budget. However, you can ensure you are prepared for any eventuality as long as your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant/realistic, and time-bound). Keep your historical data in mind when setting your KPIs, so you can make improvements on tactics that perhaps did not work or could have worked better with a few changes. Take into account your historical website traffic, social media analytics, conversion rates, sales, and the performance of your advertising campaigns, and set your goals based on how you can improve those numbers. Make sure your KPIs are realistic – if you set overly ambitious goals in hopes of impressing your boss, for example, you are only setting yourself up for failure. Setting your KPIs doesn’t need to be intimidating or confusing; you just need to be realistic about what your team can do based on your available resources, previous data, and client behavior. Make well-considered decisions using the evidence at your disposal, and always have a clear plan of action. 

Monitor, Evaluate, and Adjust Your Strategy Frequently

Monitoring a strategy’s effectiveness is an important step that many marketers tend to overlook. In addition to providing you with the ability to see how your current strategy is performing, it can serve as a useful tool for guiding your future marketing strategies as well.Utilizing your marketing data and regularly reviewing your actions can ensure that your marketing efforts are being managed effectively. Some key metrics to consider include industry benchmarks, lead quality and conversion rates, website traffic, social media engagement, email performance, and the effectiveness of paid advertisements. By tracking these metrics, you can gain insight into what’s working well and where improvements are needed, helping to maintain consistent growth and a competitive advantage while keeping objectives in line with your business goals.If you would like to find out more about creating a competitive marketing strategy, contact the experienced digital marketing team at KEY27 Marketing today.