Create a Winning Strategy for Your Small Business Success
Every business has one goal in mind: to succeed. It’s not an impossible goal, although the path towards success isn’t exactly a walk in the park.
The Global Competitiveness Index 2015-2016 reports that the business landscape has yet to fully recover from the recent global financial crisis. Although it suggests a positive outlook for the next few years, competition among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) continue to be tough.
In such a situation, a company can only succeed with a good strategy. Sure, every SME aims to rise to the top, but what matters is how you get there. Marketing strategies are essential in making sure that a company meets – even better, exceeds – its goals. But, what makes a game plan good enough?
A valuable and effective small business marketing strategy has the following elements:
A Defined Target Market
No product caters to everyone – that is the reality of doing business.
No product caters to everyone – that is the reality of doing business. It is a waste of resources to commit to a one-size-fits-all marketing approach, because certain parts of the demographic have little to no interest in what you offer. Worse, your marketing efforts may land in front of the wrong audience. Given how limited resources are for SMEs, there’s no room to make mistakes with your small business marketing approach.
This is the importance of defining your target market, the best way to deduce whom you should sell your product or service to. Because you are promoting your product or service to those who want to pay for it, you ensure profitability.
A Customer-Oriented Mindset
Andrew Reid, founder of customer intelligence platform Vision Critical, says that that we live in the “age of the empowered customer” – and that claim is true no matter how you put it. Take for example the restaurant industry, where establishments are dependent on online reviews. Studies show that a mere half-star improvement in a restaurant’s rating makes it much likelier to sell out, especially during peak times. Feedback from customers matter more than ever, especially when they can leave a review or air a complaint instantly.
Given this scenario, it is easy to see why small business marketing strategies have to be customer-oriented. If your approach isn’t suited to your target market, they won’t pay for your product or service. When that happens, you are losing out to your competitors. It is crucial to go above and beyond to ensure that your customers are satisfied and impressed with what you offer them.
A Unique Selling Proposition
What matters is how your product provides more value to your customers.
Every small business marketing firm would agree that a unique selling point is a must-have not just for your strategy, but also for your business as a whole. Your unique selling proposition (USP) is what makes you stand out from other companies offering the same product or service.
Chances are you aren’t the only business to offer a particular product. What matters is how your product provides more value to your customers. Once you find and develop your own USP, you gain a significant competitive advantage. After all, if customers can get more value from your offering with little or no difference in price, why wouldn’t they switch to you?
A Streamlined Implementation Plan
American economist Theodore Levitt once said, “Ideas are useless unless used. The proof of their value is their implementation. Until then they are in limbo.” Small business marketing ideas can only go so far if not carried out. You can take insights from all the marketing tips you can get, but all these suggestions won’t matter if you fail to implement it. It is important to devise a strategy that would present concrete steps on going head-to-head with the competition.
“Ideas are useless unless used. The proof of their value is their implementation. Until then they are in limbo.”
Theodore Levitt
What marketing channels should you use? How should you deliver your message to your customer or client base? How will you keep up with the innovation and technology in your industry? These are all important questions that your strategy answers.
Your strategy should also include a way to measure success or failure. There should also be ways to measure the success (or failure) of the entire game plan. Suppose your business plans on doing SEO, how will you go about it and what digital marketing tools and metrics will you use to gauge its effectiveness? If you have no clear answers to these questions, it’s time to go back to the drawing board and rethink your small business marketing approach.
An effective strategy is at the core of every business’s success. So fast-track the growth and success of your SME, the best way to do it is to systematize your small business marketing efforts. Make sure your strategy meets these four criteria, and you’re sure to blaze a clear path to success.
