Workshop presentation for defining the marketing strategy for your startup or small business. Think through basic but important questions you have to answer to get your marketing strategy, and don't fall into common traps many businesses do. Download exercise template here: http://markitty.com/blog/strategy-presentation.

1. Defining Your Marketing Strategy
By Better Marketing
Unmana Datta
Nilesh Bhojani

2. Workshop Goals
1. Create a marketing strategy that you will
execute over the next six months
2. Set up marketing objectives and ways to
measure performance
3. Review your performance and tweak your
strategy and tactics

3. What Is Marketing Strategy?
• What is your product/service?
• What are its benefits?
• Who are your target customers?
• Who are your key competitors?
• Why you and not a competitor?
• How much will you charge for your product?
• How will you deliver your product/service?
• How will you reach out to customers?

4. But First...
Take a step back.

5. What Is Your Business Strategy?
• Why are you in this business?
• What is your vision?
• What are your strengths?
• What is unique about your product or service?
• How will you make money?

6. Exercise: 1
• Describe your product and its benefits in one
paragraph
• State one most important benefit of your
product/service
Time: 5 minutes

7. What Is Positioning?
• What does your product/service do?
• What does it NOT do?
• Who are your target customers?
• Who are not your target customers?
• Where are you placed against competitors?
Focus.

8. Choosing Your Target Market
• What do you know about your customer?
• What does he/she think, feel, want?
• If you don’t know what drives them, how will
you sell to them?

9. Exercise 2
• Define your target audience for your most
important product: pick just one customer
group.
Time: 5 minutes

10. Now Go Back to Exercise 1
And update your product/service benefits
based on the preferences of your target
customer group.

11. Setting Objectives
• What is the most important goal for your
business right now?
• What is the most important goal for your
business in the next year?
• How do the above translate into measurable
targets?

12. Exercise: 3
• Define 3 business objectives for next six months
Time: 5 minutes

13. Choosing Marketing Channels
Channel Attributes
Website Necessary but not sufficient
Blog Great for SEO and if you are good at creating content
Facebook B2C; advertising; exciting products or great content
Twitter B2B; customer service; time-intensive
LinkedIn B2B; sales; personal branding
Email Great for nurturing or reminders
Forums Go where your customer is
Content Find new audiences – webinars, guest posts, white papers
Online ads Lead generation/sales (measurable actions)
PR For innovative products or exciting stories
Offline Go where your customer is
Events/PR
Ads/flyers/mailers
SMS

14. Caveats
• Online-only does not work.
• There is no substitute for getting to know your
customer and listening to her.
• You should have consistent messaging across
all channels.

15. Exercise: 4
• Select marketing channels you will focus on in
the next 6 months
• Define strategy for each marketing channel
Time: 5 minutes

16. Working with Constraints
• Budget
• Resources
– Time
– Skills
Copywriting Web design Graphic design SEO
Communication Responsiveness Business Knowledge Marketing Knowledge
Selling Editing Planning Coordination
Photography Video Creativity

17. Exercise: 5
Complete your marketing strategy document.
Focus on activities you can accomplish given
your constraints.
Time: 10 minutes

18. Exercise: 6
• Discuss your strategy with co-founders or senior
members of the company.
• Create your marketing plan.
• Set up marketing channels identified in the plan.
• Start marketing.
• Record experiences and achievements.
Time: 1 month

19. Next Session: Measuring Performance
• Difference between business and marketing
objectives
• Aligning business and marketing objectives
• Measuring performance
• Tools for marketing measurement
• Making decisions based on marketing results

20. Thank You!
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