Marketing Strategy in Eltham

Why a Marketing Strategy is a Smart Investment

I Spy Design develops marketing strategy and marketing plans for local businesses in Eltham and north east Melbourne. We also work with interstate and overseas clients. This includes digital marketing, SEO services, social media marketing and traditional offline marketing such as print media.

Having a marketing strategy enables you to decide where to invest your marketing and advertising budget for the best returns. This includes attracting customers who are ready to buy now, and those who are still gathering information.

It also stops random acts of marketing – where you jump from one shiny marketing object or tactic to the next, hoping the next one might work. This wastes money and confuses your audience with mixed messages, inconsistent branding and a disconnected customer experience. Your potential customers are then more likely go to your competitors to buy.

The Marketing Strategy Process

Marketing strategy starts with analysing the current state of your business and defining your goals. So why do you need a marketing strategy? Is it to increase sales, to fight off a new competitor, to inform customers of a new product or service? Or you may just be confused with all the social media options and changes with digital marketing that it seems overwhelming.

It is imperative you are clear on your why and also who you are selling to. We can then work towards why those customers would chose your product or services over your competitors.

The marketing strategy can be a series of workshops or Zoom meetings to gather internal information about your business and the products or services it provides. You share your strengths and weaknesses and more about who you are and how you do things. This includes an audit of your current marketing and brand assets. We also learn about your customer journeys before and after purchase and how they interact with your brand along the way.

Next we conduct external market and industry research. This helps us understand the threats and opportunities and identifies the risks and growth potential. It is important we also understand your competitors and how you are positioned against them in the market.

I Spy Design usually does customer research to find out what they really need and gauge their awareness of your brand and why they would buy from you. We clearly define your customer personas or profiles and understand the problems you can solve for them. These actions help inform the development of your unique selling proposition and where customers see value in what your business offers.

We work closely with you to determine the key marketing messages and channels to communicate to your target audiences. From here the marketing strategy starts to develop as we look at options to expand into new regions, innovate new products, segment existing markets to better service customer needs or a range of other options.

Marketing channels and content are outlined for your sales funnel stages. One of your main marketing channels is your website. I Spy Design also provides website design and SEO services to compliment our marketing strategy and planning. We also help you with content marketing and email marketing.

The Marketing Plan

Once the marketing strategy is documented, the marketing planning starts. This is the process of planning and creating advertising and promotional campaigns to market your products or services through a variety of channels usually over a 12 month period.

A marketing plan can include activities and outputs such as:

Email marketing
Print and outdoor advertising
In store promotions and point of sale
Brochures, posters and direct mail flyers
Content marketing for your website and customer journey
Social media advertising and posts
Public relations
Influencer and affiliate marketing

A deeper analysis of competitor marketing is undertaken and opportunities and gaps are identified. The marketing budget needs to be set and managed and the refining and aligning of marketing goals to business goals needs to happen. Sales KPIs are aligned to marketing goals and it is vital that a continuous dialogue and cooperation exists between marketing and sales teams.

It is important to determine the capacity and capability of the marketing resources in your business. You may have a dedicated marketing resources to assist with social media, website updates and email marketing. Or you may have nobody. Many of our clients need help implementing the marketing plan. This can start with creative and design briefs being developed and determining production and advertising costs. I Spy Design can provide marketing and design services to launch your plan and execute the campaigns.

The final piece is measuring results and making adjustments along the way to continually improve and connect better with your customers.

Problems we Help Solve with Marketing Strategy and Planning

Wasting money on uncoordinated advertising and knee jerk campaigns that are reactionary and not strategic.
Losing market share to new entrants investing in marketing and advertising.
Poor brand awareness of the products or services you supply and needing to generate more qualified leads.
Business owners looking to get a great website with social media and digital marketing to drive interest and leads.
Small to medium enterprises looking to expand into new markets.

Successful companies invest a minimum of 5-10% of annual revenue in advertising and promotions. And in some industries it’s a lot more. This means a good marketing strategy and plan helps ensure that investment is managed correctly – which is smart.

At I Spy Design, we like to work with clients who recognise the need and the benefits of investing in marketing to drive sales. It is amazing what a difference even small campaigns like email marketing and good SEO can make to improving sales for small to medium businesses.

Ready to invest in a smart marketing strategy to grow your business?

Book a free marketing consultation today

Implementing Your Marketing Plan for Results

To implement your plan you will need to create the promotional collateral and organise advertising. I Spy design helps take the stress out of this by providing creative services such as:

Graphic design and branding
Website design
SEO services
Copywriting
Photography

We have extensive experience in small business marketing and have found a coordinated approach helps with brand consistency and saves time and money. You do not need to go to a larger advertising agency to create successful campaigns for small business.