Marketing Strategy
You might have the best product or a unique service, but success heavily relies on how your brand communicates with its audience.
Develop a strategy that will guide your marketing efforts towards achieving the results you desire.
A marketing strategy is a detailed and specific plan of communication activities tailored to the client’s capabilities and resources, aimed at achieving clearly defined marketing objectives. It also outlines the methods and means for increasing brand value, and thus, the company’s value.
Examples of marketing strategy objectives:
A brand is not just a logo or a name. A brand has an emotional character. It encompasses everything that recipients feel when they interact with your brand through market communication. Brand communication is an emotional-rational construct that forms in the mind through every touchpoint with the brand—whether it’s ads, messages, videos, articles, social media posts, reels, photos, etc. As you can see, brands are complex.
On the other hand, strategic marketing involves planning and communication tools (e.g., advertising) that influence customers to behave as the brand owner desires. However, for marketing to work optimally, a marketing strategy is essential. Without it, ads and communication will be created haphazardly, from ‘idea to idea’—which is the worst possible situation and poses a threat to your brand.
A marketing strategy is a plan that directs the actions of everyone involved in the company’s marketing, including advertising agencies and communication creators (designers, copywriters, influencers, etc.), toward a unified goal.
Yes. Every brand/company needs a marketing strategy. Here’s why:
A lack of a clearly defined marketing strategy puts any company (regardless of its size) in a dangerous position. Over time, even if things start off well, brands gradually stop growing, become highly susceptible to competition, marketing and advertising budgets are often wasted, and brands communicate less effectively with their audience. This is a constant rule regardless of the market or company size. Brands without a strategy inevitably move toward chaos (market development, changing customer trends, new competitors, etc.). Sometimes this process is slow and not easily noticed, but the crisis hits suddenly, often manifesting as stalled growth, declining revenue, and an inevitable loss of customers.
If your competition implements a well-designed marketing strategy, the competitive battle will be fierce, often brutal, and extremely costly for your brand. These are the realities of modern marketing. The cost of retaining customers in your company will quickly rise, and brand growth could be impeded. This is not an empty threat. These processes are visible both among the largest players and very frequently in the SME sector, especially in areas with low entry barriers. Adding to this the fluctuating consumer trends paints a picture of chaos. A marketing strategy helps to protect against this.
The answer is simple: no company is too small. In fact, experience shows that small businesses and startups often need a marketing strategy the most. The key reasons are brand image and competitiveness—these are the primary areas where marketing strategies have a significant impact on smaller and younger organizations. Effective external communication is crucial for building the right image and emotions among potential customers, encouraging them to take specific actions.
While larger and older companies may have somewhat different goals, young and small players primarily want to make a rapid impact in the market. A marketing strategy enables them to achieve this.
In our work, we most often communicate with business owners and management teams rather than just marketers. It is at this level that a marketing strategy is adopted.
There are many methodologies for marketing strategy. Our approach leverages the best practices from elite global advertising agencies, while also being tailored to the operational realities of SMEs. It consists of three main phases:
Creating detailed customer profiles (i.e., Insights). Identifying the unique psychological traits of customers and understanding their decision-making model. We need a complete picture of them, knowing how they think and what messages they are particularly sensitive to.
We also analyze the marketing communication of competitors.
This phase builds on the knowledge of the target audience. Clear brand objectives are defined. We develop: Brand Values, Brand Differentiators, Communication Tone (the style in which the brand communicates), and Communication Pillars (the key topics the brand addresses throughout its communication). The creative phase defines the brand’s DNA.
The most crucial phase for implementing communication strategies, including advertising. It defines the Strategic Idea, which is the primary direction of communication, and the Creative Idea, which determines how the brand communicates in both emotional and rational ways—this serves as the foundation for creating texts, images, videos, advertisements, etc.
In this phase, we also identify which media will be used in communication and what content will be included.
A well-designed and implemented marketing strategy has a significant impact on the overall functioning of an organization. It affects not only the external brand communication through advertising and promotions but also the perception and understanding of the brand within the organization.
A well-designed and implemented marketing strategy has a significant impact on the overall functioning of an organization. It affects not only the external brand communication through advertising and promotions but also the perception and understanding of the brand within the organization.
A well-designed and implemented marketing strategy always achieves these goals. The reason is that a marketing strategy is not just a set of ideas for how ads should look but a communication mechanism based on a logical model that operates throughout the company’s entire communication.
We gain a much deeper insight into the psychology and decision-making model of our customers. We can anticipate their reactions, understand their emotional tensions, expectations, aspirations, and desires. We know their communication sensitivities and are aware of the unique traits that trigger responses.
We are aware of the strengths and weaknesses in our competitors’ communication. We understand the traits and values they base their communication on. We can anticipate their actions, and any sudden changes in their marketing communication will be immediately noticeable, allowing for a swift response.
The quality of the customer experience with the brand determines their attitude toward the product or service. This pertains to the communicative experience. Customers subconsciously and consciously sense whether a brand resonates with them. Communication creates specific emotions that ultimately lead to conversion (e.g., purchasing a product). A good marketing strategy maximizes the chances of conversion.
This involves not only the brand’s market image but also its internal understanding within the company. The entire management team and all those involved in communication have a clear, precise picture of what the brand truly represents, its character and objectives, the language it uses, and the expected outcomes. Furthermore, if communication deviates from the strategy, it will be immediately noticeable and can be quickly corrected.
Unlike “idea-to-idea” promotional marketing, a well-designed marketing strategy allows for continuous measurement of effectiveness. Since the communication follows a defined path and there is a clear picture of what should happen and how customers should respond, it’s possible to set up Marketing KPIs, or effectiveness metrics. Beyond the obvious metrics like conversion rates and sales growth, these include: reach to new customers, engagement with communication, repeat business, loyalty, etc.
Every partner involved in creating communication elements (designers, copywriters, advertising agencies, influencers, etc.) has a clear understanding of the direction for content creation and what to avoid. This clarity is crucial. It minimizes the risk of misguided ideas that may seem good but are ineffective, and reduces the risk of budget wastage.
The actions outlined here are designed for both new brands and those already on the market that need strengthening or repositioning (giving them a new character in the minds of consumers). Especially in the context of new brands, this methodology not only helps avoid common mistakes but also aims to extract the maximum impact and effectiveness in competitive battles.
This is one of the most challenging elements in building a brand. Insight, beyond demographic data, aims to reveal the psychological profile of the audience and precisely define them. We need to understand their problems, emotional tensions (known as Tensions), aspirations, and ambitions. It is crucial to know what messages they are sensitive to. Insight is the foundation of brand building. Everything created in the subsequent steps depends on understanding how our audience thinks and what they are sensitive to. Insight culminates in segmentation, which involves identifying usually 3 main target groups from the overall audience that will be the focus of the brand’s communication.
Contrary to what one might think, a valuable competitive analysis is a challenging task. It allows for uncovering the strategic assumptions and positioning of competitor brands. Proper analysis is only possible with a comprehensive understanding of strategic methodology. This analysis helps identify communication trends and, most importantly, the weaknesses of competitors and gaps in their brand character that our new brand can exploit. It also enables us to anticipate the communication actions of competitors.
Brand Values are typically three key concepts that give the brand its unique character. They define the emotional and rational associations that are part of the brand’s DNA. These values must be clearly named and directly translated into the creation of marketing materials. All marketing materials must align with these values. Brand values must also resonate with the communication sensitivities of the target audience. Every strong brand has a unique set of values. These might include concepts such as tradition, innovation, self-improvement, community, courage, breaking conventions, etc.—each of which must have a concrete and precisely defined form of communication in brand development. These values cannot be empty terms; they represent the true character of the brand.
Communication Pillars are very precisely defined themes that the brand will address across all its communications. These pillars result from an understanding of the audience, knowledge of competitors, and alignment with the Brand Values. Communication Pillars determine what advertising will focus on, how promotional materials will look, and the content of video materials. They are a fundamental tool for showcasing the brand’s unique features and competitive advantages. During brand development, these pillars must be detailed and specified.
In developing new brands or revitalizing existing ones, a common mistake is the lack of a defined tone of voice, which refers to the style in which the brand communicates. It is crucial to tailor this style to the audience. The brand’s image heavily depends on whether the communication is formal, informal, casual, friendly, conversational, humorous, or references popular culture. The tone of voice directly influences the style of the logo, graphics, advertisements, and all content produced by the brand.
The goal of consulting is to uncover and understand the processes occurring within a company during the planning and execution of brand communication with customers. This enables the design of changes to improve marketing operations within the company and enhance the effectiveness of communication efforts.
It helps identify key decision points, and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of processes such as developing and implementing advertising campaigns, promotional activities, loyalty solutions, and more.
How Does Marketing Consulting Help Companies?
Helps anticipate difficulties in implementing strategies.
Reveals potential problems during the execution of marketing projects.
Improves the effectiveness of advertising and promotions.
Identifies opportunities for better budget utilization.
Enables the planning of more efficient marketing processes.
Facilitates the implementation of success metrics for marketing activities.
