10 steps to systematic marketing that delivers results

According to statistics, only 20% of new products stay on the market for at least one year. That means 80% of newly launched products are eventually closed or lose a significant market share. However, they had budgeted for their development, and market and target audience research was conducted.

Nothing can guarantee a product 100% success, but an effective marketing strategy increases the chances of success much more. At the same time, its absence minimizes them.

Here are 10 tips on how to make marketing systematic and profitable:

1: Determine what kind of marketing you need

Depending on the stage of development, size, and current capabilities of the company, marketing needs vary greatly.

• At the start-up stage, the owner should be the company's marketer, salesperson, and technical support. It`s necessary to understand the client's problems clearly and offer them products that will help solve them.
• At the development stage, you need to delegate marketing. You can use freelance specialists, agencies, and consulting. In other words, everything that will help to better research the market and the target audience, provide tools for attracting consumers, and determine the best communication channels.
• At the systematization stage, the company should have a qualified full-time marketer who manages marketing processes and establishes teamwork with other departments. Here, you need to study the needs of the target audience in detail, look for new segments and products, and maintain the loyalty of current customers.

2. Define marketing KPIs in the company Marketing should be responsible for everything that happens to the product and the consumer. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's intertwined with the work of other departments and must be aligned with business goals.

There are hundreds of performance indicators, but each company has its own set of KPIs that really matter.

3. Investigate internal factors

The mood within the company can affect the quality of your product, customer experience, and thus sales and profits.

Customer-facing marketing will only work 100% if even the office cleaners are fans of the company and its products.

4. Investigate external factors

All the factors that affect your product matter. For example, climate change, pandemics, and armed conflicts can dramatically change the target audience's priorities and create demand for new products.

It is important to understand what your product's consumers are currently prioritizing. Certain external factors can knock your product off the shelves for a long time. For example, restaurants and fitness clubs were the first to suffer during the coronavirus, as people had to stay home. Part of the problem for restaurants has been solved by food delivery. Some even reconsidered their business. And resourceful fitness trainers have begun to conduct classes online, changing how they retain customers.

If earlier offline and online sales could exist in parallel, nowadays all companies at least have an online presence.

5. Research the market

You need to clearly understand what market share you have, what consumers think of you, and how they perceive your competitors. Learn more about your customer's goals, needs, and desires, which ones you meet, and which your competitors do.

Compare your own assortment with that of your competitors. Is what you consider your competitive advantage something unique? In practice, this is often not the case.

6. Research your competitors

Understanding competitors' characteristics, methods, and strategies can give you an advantage. Eventually, you will be ready to take some action when they launch their new products. You would stay ahead of the game or create the best offers.

For example, two large retail chains have started discussing joint wholesale purchases (which will reduce the cost of certain goods), and the third started similar cooperation with a large number of small local stores.

7. Explore your options

Create a unique offer like Apple, IKEA, Google, Porsche, or Amazon.

If you want to work in the premium segment with high profits, offer innovations rather than trying to dump competitors.

8. Focus on the tasks that the product solves

Kotler's classic approach is to choose one segment of the target audience and work with it. But the modern world is changing too rapidly, and completely different people may need your solution. Today, the high price of a product or a famous brand does not limit the target audience by age. Similarly, relatively inexpensive devices like the Apple Watch can sell well even among wealthy people. Moreover, consumers grow up, start a business, start a family, and change their needs and expectations. At the same time, regardless of their status, people face challenges that your product can best solve.

9. Create a flexible growth strategy

Every strategy starts with a goal. Strategy is a vector of movement that points to the goal. A goal can exist without a strategy, but there is no strategy without a goal.

At the same time, remember that the wrong tactics can ruin the strategy. Unattractive creatives or scandals due to inappropriate jokes can knock a brand out of the market for a long time. What works in Europe or the US may fail in Asia and vice versa. Therefore, the marketing strategy should take into account the tactical features of the audience of individual markets.

Changing your strategy even once a week is foolishness. However adapting to market changes is a strategy: a long one, but flexible enough to ensure profitability despite external factors.

10. Communicate in the client's language

There are no ready-made recipes for determining the positioning of a product in the market. But it is always important to find the customer's problem and solve as best as possible. And this should be announced clearly and loudly through the relevant channels.

I once worked with a dental clinic that specialized in placing intraosseous titanium implants immediately after tooth extraction in one visit. Instead of the standard extraction, rehabilitation, implant base placement, and main part and crown within 6-12 months, they performed two complex procedures almost simultaneously. This significantly reduces the healing time and the possibility of further prosthetics. However, they could not achieve full utilization of the clinic because few people knew about it.

In other words, the lack of quantity and breadth of communications can become a barrier to business development. So, if you have a great business that solves consumer problems, your task is to tell as many potential customers as possible about it.

P.S. All this and many other interesting and useful aspects of marketing will be discussed in my online course Marketing Stripping.

So, if you want to understand marketing better in order to use your resources more efficiently and constantly increase profits, write "course" in the comments below and get the details before anyone else!