New Year, New Business? How to Build a Winning Strategy

New Year, New Business?

The new year is the ideal opportunity to nail down your marketing strategy and reach new heights by expanding your business. However, crafting a robust digital strategy with a compelling messaging is often easier said than done. Whether you’re in the process of launching a new business or you already have one, we’re here to help bring your ideas to fruition so you can make the most out of your marketing efforts.

In this blog, we delve into the top five steps to help you build a winning marketing strategy for your new business and start 2022 on the right foot:

1. Define your targets

 Every brand needs a clearly defined marketing plan for success, however, how do you set the right targets for your new business?

Firstly, it’s essential to spend some time crafting your mission and vision statements of your business. What is your business all about and who are you catering for? What is your unique selling proposition (USP) and how do you stand out from the crowd? How can your products and services provide value to anyone? The statements should be clear, concise and highlight the overall purpose of your company.

Once you have a clear understanding of your ambitions, it’s time to set up a document showcasing your business’ objectives, action items and priorities to ensure everyone from the team is working towards these objectives. Make sure your strategy includes SMART goals and you set key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your success against. Your document should include information about key milestones you wish to achieve within the next 2-5 years, how you will drive revenue growth, as well as map out goals to mitigate the external risk factors that might prevent your success.

2. Analyse your competition

Competition breeds the best results, therefore, you should be aware about who your core competitors are and how they’re performing in the digital space. In other words, a competitive analysis is a strategy that involves researching major competitors to gain insight into their products, sales, and marketing tactics.

Make a list of the greatest 5-6 competitors from your niche and have a look through their social media channels – What are they doing well? What type of posts do their followers engage with the most? What are their top performing posts and what can you learn from it? Conducting a thorough competitor analysis can provide you with a benchmark against which you can measure your business’ growth.

After you scan your competitors’ profile, make sure you write down any opportunities you identify that makes your product or service different from your competitors’. This will enable you to strengthen your unique value proposition and better understand what marketing tactics you should use to illustrate your products to your audience.

3. Map your customer journey

How can your brand exceed your customers’ expectations and provide a smooth experience?

A customer journey map is a visual representation of the customer journey, otherwise known as the buyer journey. Creating a visual story of how your clients interact with your brand across different touchpoints (email, social media, live chat) is essential as it allows business owners to emphasise with their audience and gain a valuable insight into the common customer pain points and how to solve them. According to research, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase when brands offer experiences personalised to them.

Thinking that ‘anyone’ is your buyer is one of the biggest mistake any business owner can make. To make sure you build an effective buyer journey, you should map out your ideal customers and how they look like through a fictional buyer persona. As a business, you might cater to more than one group of people, hence why you should create multiple buyer personas that reflect your customers’ intrinsic motivations, financial status, hobbies and professional goals. Once you have a clear vision of who your customers are, you should review the customers’ experience at every single touchpoint, such as your website or your social platforms, and facilitate their journey towards reaching your products to ensure you increase your conversions or brand awareness.

4. Choose your social media channels

Building a strong social media presence is an essential step that can either make or break your business. However, with some many new and emerging social media channels, it’s getting harder to know what is the best place to interact with your potential customers. Once you have mapped out your buyer persona and the customer journey, the next step is identifying where your audience hangs out online.

For instance, if your target audience is defined by the Gen Z community, they are most likely to be on Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. This indicates what social media platforms you should use to create relevant and refreshing content that matches their unique needs. In contrast, millennials between 25 to 34 are the largest group using Facebook in the UK, totalling 11.2 million users.

5. Measure your results and track your progress

Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is the most efficient way to see what works and what are the areas where you can improve. Your marketing activity should be driven by your buyer journey and by your unique selling proposition (USP) to ensure you can stand out from the crowd and start meaningful conversations with your customers on social media. However, focusing too much on the wrong metrics can put a stop to the growth of your business.

To achieve success, you should establish KPIs for each of your marketing campaigns as that will give you a clear indication about where you should direct your time and resources going forward.

Some of the most common KPIs you should include in your strategy are:

• Return on Investment (ROI)
• Conversion Rate
• Cost per Lead
• Website Traffic
• Social Media Reach

Most importantly, a powerful digital strategy is based on your ability to adapt to the ever-changing digital landscape and always adjust your marketing plan to fit the growing needs of your ideal customers. Therefore, following these steps will ensure that 2022 is the year you propel forward and accomplish your digital marketing objectives.

Are you ready to build a winning digital strategy for your business?

At Platform81, we are your trusted friends that will support you on your growth journey. We can help you create a laser-focused digital strategy to drive your business forward and match your products with your ideal audience.

Browse through our latest case studies to see our results or get in touch with us today and let’s bring your vision to life together.