Successful marketing strategies are important whether you are running a small retail shop, a wholesale store, a partnership or a multi-million dollar corporation. A successful marketing strategy is implemented continuously and reviewed if need be in line with changing consumer preferences, marketing events and actions of your competitors.

You don’t have to spend a fortune or be super creative to generate leads and sales. The trick is to develop a marketing strategy that will be the basis of all your promotional efforts. There are a number key factors that you should keep in mind when developing your marketing strategy.

5 Laws for Successful Marketing Strategies

1. Identify your target market

Who are you looking to reach with your adverts and mails? Everybody, anybody and nobody can be your prospective customer. You must identify your ideal customer to make sure your marketing efforts result in the best ROI (return on investment).

Target markets can be defined based on age groups, geographical location, industry, level of income, company size, etc. Targeting your buyer persona market will save you on costs and help you achieve sales faster than simply targeting an undefined mass market. Look for areas where your market segment is not served or well and strive to be the dominant player in that area.

2. Know your competitors

You may not have direct competition but there is certainly something that is competing for your target market’s attention and money. Identify and make use of your competitive advantage. Come up with a marketing strategy that clearly convinces the market why they should spend their money on your product and/or service and not on your competitors’. Research the marketing strategies that your competitors use and their results. See what you can do better than your competition.

3. Build awareness

Most customers will not buy your products after seeing it the first, second, third or even tenth time. It takes several exposures before a customer realizes that they need your product and decides to buy. It is hard for a customer to buy when they cannot even remember its existence in the first place. Interact with your market through various avenues to make them know your brand, business and products.

4. Build credibility

It is not enough to just build awareness; you should make potential customers trust that you will deliver what you promise. There is huge risk and uncertainty about new purchases. You can build credibility through various ways, for example offering customers an opportunity to sample your product before spending their hard earned money. Another alternative is to educate your marketing through blogs and social media on how your product can solve their problems. Credible brands do not have a problem attracting new sales and repeat purchases. They may even want other products that you sell.

5. Be consistent and persistent

Customers usually associate quality with consistency. You should not stop at the first marketing technique you use. Be consistent and persistent with your offline or online promotional activities. You cannot achieve your marketing goals if you give up on the way, thus the need for persistence. Change the strategy you are using if it is not yielding good results or tweak it to perform better.

There you have it, five strong key factors for successful marketing strategies. You should implement the right combinations of marketing tactics to achieve the best results. Even with a creativity challenged marketing team can achieve great results by following a proven marketing strategy. The above laws work for both inbound and outbound marketing, all contributing to the success of your business.