Why every business should have a marketing strategy?

Starting a business from scratch, people mainly focus on sales and administrative practices. Sometimes, they are focused on the product or service, but what about marketing? Entrepreneurs are sometimes overwhelmed with wearing so many hats, and when it comes to marketing,  they may think it is costly and difficult to see a tangible outcome in a timeframe that suits their expectations.

73% of businesses * don’t have a marketing strategy in place at the start of the year. It is often put to the wayside then management wonder why they didn’t achieve their business goals faster.

There are many reasons why businesses should have a marketing strategy. Here’s a few:

Increase in market share

Each market is divided into shares and they are captured by the competitors in that market. This fight for market share is intensifying. Small companies can often take market share away from big corporates by being disruptive, or brave and bold marketing campaigns that leave their larger counterparts in their wake. To increase market share, companies need a marketing strategy – pure and simple. The more you know about the market, the more opportunities you can leverage.

Business expansion

When a business has been running for a long period of time, and wants to expand at a rapid pace – a strategy is essential and can save wasted marketing dollars on ad hoc testing that often results mediocre results. Any business that wants to expand, needs a marketing strategy in place to ensure that the expansion is on the right track, and is maintaining the brand traction on a week-to-week basis.

Innovation

The need for a marketing strategy is not just about the business – it’s broader than that. The market is changing every day and with the saturation of advertising above the line and the below the line, consumers don’t know where to look. If you really want to be at the top of the business pyramid, you need innovation at all levels – brand, product, supply or manufacturing to give you a competitive advantage. You can always find new ideas since you have an in-depth and precise study of the market and a direction in which you are heading as a business.

Demanding customers

After all the hard work and strategies applied in the business, the success and failure lie in the hands of the customers. And customers are attuned to receiving good and bad service, but customers only want the ‘best’. You will need a marketing strategy to give the ‘best’ service possible to your customers.

There are actually more reasons why we should adopt a marketing strategy despite the above-mentioned. Launching a marketing strategy would definitely maximize the capability of the business in all areas from HR through to operations, business development and finance.

Now, get to it!

Your guest author: Cherry Chu