Best Marketing Strategies For Companies

Knowing what are the most effective marketing strategies should be the first step of any company or business on the Internet.

You would be surprised by the number of companies that start an adventure without any kind of roadmap.

Without a plan that guides them with all the actions they have to carry out to achieve objectives.

It is no coincidence that 80% of businesses fail before the age of 3.

Therefore, in that guide I am going to tell you the 35 types of marketing strategies for companies that you should know, and above all apply.

To do this, I will also show you several examples of marketing strategies.

What Is A Marketing Strategy?

Surely many times you have started to think about tactics and actions but you have never really stopped to think about what a marketing strategy is and why it is so important.

In a very brief way, a marketing strategy is a set of actions that we are going to carry out to achieve the business objectives of the company and thus achieve the goal.

Perhaps with this graphic that summarizes the essential steps when developing a digital marketing plan it will be much clearer.

Explained quickly, we could divide the process into four stages:

1) Business model of the project.

Any type of action, or tactic that is carried out must be related to the business model of the company.

A very common mistake that I see in a large number of companies is to think about publications, emails, articles, etc. without having any relationship with the income streams of the project.

It seems obvious, but when it comes to reality, it is not so obvious.

2) Analysis stage

Once you are clear about where you want to go, a marketing audit is done where we will analyze our project and that of the competition.

Then we must do the SWOT analysis of a company and analyze what are the competitive forces that we can exploit, but also be alert to other elements.

Then we will have to define our target audience and quantify how many resources (monetary, physical and personal) we have to later choose what our communication channels will be.

3) Strategic definition

Once we are clear about all these elements, what we will do is determine the objectives.

Depending on what we want to achieve, we must define the most appropriate strategies that help us achieve them.

Therefore, we will have to specify the tactics and define the marketing KPIs that we have helped us measure if we are achieving the objectives.

4) Analysis

And based on that analysis we will establish corrective measures (in case they are necessary and the objectives have not been achieved).

As you have seen it is a whole strategic process that cannot be understood without knowing the context of all the elements because they are all related to each other and are affected by each other.

Most Effective Types Of Business Marketing Strategies

Depending on what the competitive position of your business is, the resources you have and your objectives, there will be a number of strategies that are more effective than others.

But, remember that in the end, they must all be integrated under the same objective.

Personally, if I had to highlight the most important ones, I would tell you that the best marketing strategies for companies can be divided into two large groups:

• Strategic marketing strategies.
• Digital Marketing Strategies

So let’s get down to work and we are going to see one and with different examples so that everything can be clear to you.

Examples Of The Best Marketing Strategies

The decisions of the company at a strategic level are essential for the survival of the same can affect the entire business.

It can influence the price, forms of expansion, growth, reduction of investments, etc. so we will see the main strategic decisions that you should take into account.

1) Marketing Mix Strategies: The 4 Ps

The famous 4 P’s (or Marketing Mix) are a classic of marketing but it is being given less and less importance.

The reason? We focus so much on digital that sometimes we forget the most basic and essential aspects.

We spend the day thinking about how to advertise on Facebook, how to position our website, etc. that sometimes we forget about the most strategic decisions at the business level.

To make marketing mix, the first thing we will have to define are the 4 P’s:

Let’s see examples of each of these variables of the marketing mix.

A) Product strategy

By product we mean what the company is going to market in a certain market to solve certain problems (needs).

At this point, we will have to finish all the variables that can affect its commercialization such as:

• The brand.
• El Packaging.
• The labels.
• The warranty.
• Delivery.
• Credit.
• Safety.
• The geographical origin.
• The company’s own prestige.
• The after-sales service.
• Its own characteristics.

All these variables and characteristics must be clear before launching it on the market.

B) Pricing Strategy

The pricing strategy will consist of defining how much each of the products and / or services that we launch to the market will cost.

That is, we will have to determine what is the amount of money that a person could pay.

Here we must take into account the 3 C’s of marketing that are: Customers, Costs and Competition.

And based on these three variables we will have different methods of pricing.

• Cost-based pricing methods
• Competition-based pricing methods
• Demand-based pricing methods

C) Distribution strategies

The next step will be to determine what the company’s distribution channel is.

In short, what other companies are going to intervene from the beginning of manufacturing until it is marketed.

You also have to take into account if the sale will only be through a physical store or if otherwise it will also be combined with an online store or eCommerce.

Depending on how many organizations are going to intervene, we will have different distribution channels.

Other things you should keep in mind when designing your distribution channel will be:

D) Promotion strategies

They help us determine how we will communicate to our potential that we are the best possible alternative to solve their problems.

There are different types of communication such as:

• Advertising.
• Sales promotion.
• Public relations.
• Sponsorship.
• The fairs.
• Guerrilla marketing.
• Media such as TV, Radio, Press.
• Email marketing.
• Etc.

Try to combine online with offline and carry out integrated communication.

That is, use the channel you use, try to always transmit the same message (adapting it to each medium).

2) Target audience segmentation strategies

The segmentation of the market and the choice of the target audience is one of the main aspects that we have to take into account when designing marketing strategies.

We can distinguish between 4 main types:

A) Undifferentiated or mass marketing strategy

This type of target audience strategy consists of attacking the entire market with the same product.

That is, we do not do any segmentation, but we address the entire market with a single offer.

B) Differentiated or segmented marketing strategy

Unlike in the previous case, in the differentiated segmentation strategy we must select two or more segments and carry out a different marketing strategy for each of the segments.

In this case, the company will be able to adapt much better to the needs of each of its segments and offer different commercial offers.

The drawback with respect to the previous case, is that it has higher costs.

C) Micro segmentation or micro marketing strategies

This type is similar to the previous one but taken more to the extreme.

Here we consider each potential client as a single segment and therefore try to adapt our offer to each person.

We can distinguish between two types of segmentation:

• Local Marketing: The objective is to try to adapt the commercial offer to the characteristics of local consumers and thus differentiate itself from the competition.
• Individual or one-to-one marketing: it consists of personalizing the product in as much detail as possible.

D) Concentrated or niche marketing strategy

With the niche strategy what we do is segment consumers but we will only choose a single segment of all.

When the segment we have selected is not the majority, then it will be a niche strategy.

The downside is that we’re going to focus all of our marketing efforts on a single niche.

What would happen if that segment disappeared or their needs changed?

3) Brand positioning strategies

You should already know the target audience to target and how to do it.

The next step is to determine the brand positioning strategy you are going to follow.

Note:

Brand positioning after all is what place our product occupies in the consumer’s mind.

That is, how do potential customers see our solution in relation to other competitors?

This is very important, because for example, if we want to position ourselves for quality or prices, we must adapt all the actions to that objective.

Otherwise, we could be facing a brand positioning problem.

A) General positioning strategies

If we want to position our brand, the first thing we will have to do is specify the most general aspects, which can be:

• Competition-based
• Consumer-based
• Based on social responsibility

B) Specific positioning strategies

While among the most specific are:

• Based on the attribute.
• Based on profit.
• For a specific occasion of use or application.
• Based on the class of users.
• Related to other products of the same class.
• The brand is endorsed.
• Based on the shopping or consumption experience.

4) Growth strategies of a company

Once the company is already in the sector operating, it must decide how it wants to grow.

Here we will be talking about an old acquaintance of the business world such as the Ansoff Growth Matrix that has as main axes two factors:

• Products
• The market

A) Penetration strategies

Market penetration is about growing with the same product and in the current market.

Basically, it consists of increasing market share either by:

• Marketing campaigns.
• Reduce prices.
• Make promotions.

Whatever you do, the end result should translate into an increase in customers.

An example could be a phone company wanting to increase its market share at the expense of its competition.

I have put this example a little exaggerated, but surely you understand it better.

Other resources to increase market share could be:

• Increase the frequency with which it is consumed.
• Increase your average consumption.
• Give it a new use.

B) Market development strategy

It consists of offering your current products to new markets.

That is, I sell to a new customer segment or I am heading to a new geographic market.

It’s a good way to get a higher return on investment because you don’t have to develop a new one.

What you have to do are marketing campaigns focused on new markets.

An example of market development could be what Nintendo has done with a 3DS system.

He initially focused on a younger audience and then directed his marketing actions to a more adult audience.

C) Product development strategy

It means offering a new product to today’s markets.

We could do it in the following ways:

• Expanding the line.
• Creating new ones.
• Expanding the portfolio.
• Adding new features to the current one.

A clear example would be the case of the iPhone 6 and its extension to the iPhone 6 Plus.

The market is the same, but the iPhone is “new”

D) Diversification strategy

The diversification strategy is the most radical of all because it involves creating a new product and directing it to new markets.

The good thing is that you reduce the overall risk of the company by not depending on the same product or the same market.

The problem is that it is the riskiest of all and the one that will entail higher costs.

You should also know that there are different types of diversification:

• Related diversification.
• Unrelated diversification

An example could be Yamaha, which has both pianos and motorcycles.

In this it would be almost unrelated, because the activity of one is not related to that of the other.

5) Divestment strategies

Many times to grow you do not have to invest more, but quite the opposite.

Sometimes the best marketing strategy is to withdraw our investment from those products and / or services that are no longer giving us a positive return on investment.

When deciding which ones we want to eliminate we will have to analyze a series of factors or parameters such as:

• Sales criteria: What is the evolution of sales? What percentage does it mean with respect to our total sales?
• Profitability criteria: ROI or profit.
• Market criteria: market share and its evolution.
• Operational criteria: after-sales services or stock level.

These are the criteria that we will have to analyze before carrying out any decision.

Based on this, we can distinguish between:

• E. of elimination: it consists of removing from the market the product that the company is marketing.
• E. of harvest: exit the market but trying to recover the money of all the previous investments.
• E. of sustainability: we do not invest more in that product, but we do not reduce the investment either.