Marketing has evolved constantly and dramatically in recent years. In order to adapt to the requirements of today’s market, other variables than the 6 “P” mentioned in the article “Have you thought about your marketing plan” are to be considered, especially for services . The share of service activities is increasing in the global economy and it is increasingly rare to find a tangible product that is not accompanied by a service. This combination is intended to ensure the satisfaction of a demanding clientele operating in a competitive market.

The parameters of a marketing strategy as it is practiced today must be supplemented by the following elements:

People
This includes all those who have a role in the delivery of the service and an impact on its quality during the exchange, namely:

Staff in touch with customers: he plays a very important role in service activities, particularly through his listening skills and willingness to do his job well to satisfy the clientele.

Partners: In order for the customer experience to be satisfactory, the service company must choose its partners. The client evaluates his / her final experience and does not distinguish the part provided by the company from the one offered by its partners. For example, a company outsourcing its call center to an outside company should be aware that the quality of this service will be an integral part of the customer experience. The company will therefore also be evaluated on this basis.

Other participants: it is also about taking into account those who accompany the user of the product during his consumption without representing the target audience of the company. For example, parents accompanying their children to a movie show.

Process
The customer assesses all of his experience, from his first contact with the company to the last contact, including how it deals with claims. Therefore, the company must study all stages of the relationship with customers, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to ensure its satisfaction, including waiting time and hospitality.

Physical presentation
This element includes all the tangible aspects present at the point of contact or exchange, which create the atmosphere and the atmosphere, including everything that can influence the impression of the potential customer and his evaluation of the service, including the appearance Staff.

Planet
Customers are becoming increasingly sensitive to sustainable development, including its social and environmental aspects. Any company concerned about its image among its customers will choose to integrate sustainable development into its marketing strategy, not only with regard to its products and their origin, but also its employees. For example, today’s diversity of staff is increasingly seen as contributing to the innovation and thus the profitability of the company. Innovative companies seek to build heterogeneous teams.

Performance
A marketing plan that does not include a budget is not very useful. To achieve financial goals, one must first achieve marketing objectives that are geared to the satisfaction of all stakeholders, including customers. Marketing objectives are based on predefined marketing indicators. In the long run a financial performance results from a marketing performance. Marketing expenses must therefore be considered as a long-term investment aimed at achieving the company’s performance objectives.

The company must determine both its financial (economic) performance and its performance on social and environmental aspects through predefined indicators and in order to be part of a sustainable development philosophy.

All companies, big and small, should have a marketing plan. It is important to plan where you want to go and HOW to get there. The marketing plan is considered as the channel that connects the company to its market. You need to identify the goals you want to achieve and then determine how you will get there. There is no perfect course, but the marketing plan can predict and avoid several mistakes.

It defines the organization’s vision to enable the company to look forward with a dynamic, market and customer-driven process. The marketing plan is a kind of instruction manual that provides step-by-step instructions for achieving your goals. It can also serve as a motivator for employees who enjoy working for a company that has plans for the future and has a plan to achieve them.

Other benefits of the marketing plan

Find a clear direction to acquire and keep customers
Achieving the goals set
Contribute to the positioning of the brand
Make better strategic use of the brand
Sell ​​your products and services more easily
Identify the problems and uncertainties associated with the actions to be taken
Take advantage of opportunities
Coordinate communication between departments

Marketing decisions have a long-term effect on a company’s efficiency and profitability within its market. For these reasons, marketing planning requires thought, creativity and foresight. It is essential to the success of your business.

To properly implement a webmarketing strategy and even marketing in general, it is important to follow this cycle containing 5 steps in order to boost the performance of a company by multiplying the loyal customers:

1. Seduce the customer:
The first step is to offer an offer that brings value to the customer. It can solve a problem, respond to a request or even as Apple does very well: create demand. The point is to really bring something that is of interest to the customer. The goal is to attract the customer by seduction with an attractive offer.

2. Federate the customer:
The goal here is to create a community around your product, your brand or your company to establish communication, solidarity and interactivity between you and your customers and between your customers themselves. Each company can develop its own community network and federate its customers around a dynamic that will serve both its communication objectives, but also and above all the progression and development of its products and services.

3. Involve:
The customer likes to feel himself an actor of his consumption, he likes even that the offer is tailor-made to meet his expectations. That’s why it’s important to put the customer as a central pillar in the company’s strategic decisions. For example, in the computer field, let the customer compose the computer as he wishes, or as the possibility at Ray Ban to test glasses online with his webcam. The conversion rate of your sales will be increased. By involving the customer in his act of purchase, his buying motivation is multiplied by 2. We like to have the freedom to choose, that’s what any customer expects.

4. Build loyalty:
Selling is good, but if the customer comes back it’s even better. In order to retain customers, it is important to offer an after-sales service that is up to the task, to listen to the customer, to offer discount cards after a certain number of purchases, to offer rewards for the best customers … L goal is to get customers back as often as possible. Show the customer that you are interested in him. A loyal customer is a customer who not only returns to buy, but also pushes others to buy from you, we often underestimate the power of word of mouth.

5. Analyze:
Build your customer database, analyze your sales over time, observe behaviors, trends, follow requests and suggestions … The analysis improves the points mentioned above and boost your marketing strategy. Draw conclusions from your analyzes to improve each point of your strategy.

If there were only 3 steps to get an effective marketing strategy, it would be this:

Attract (seduction: attractive offer)
Motivate (federation and implication: customer at the heart of the act of purchase)
Retain (reward, added value for returning customers)
And you ? What are the goals of your marketing strategies?

Marketing is both a science and an “art” that gives a company the opportunity to be profitable and sell its products better than its competitors. Marketing is also a tool that will ensure the loyalty of your customers, in a very competitive market. The marketing approach allows you to determine the collective and human needs of unsatisfied consumers to be able to respond in a cost-effective manner.

How to develop a marketing plan and strategy?

In an environment where competition is fierce and customers have the freedom to choose between one product, service and another, it is necessary to carefully accommodate the value creation process. If there was a time when companies were just making products before selling them, and marketing was often downstream of production, this is certainly not the case today.

Currently, since the competition is fierce and the abundant supply, one is obliged to put marketing upstream of the product in order to define the offer and to better target the market. Today, design takes on a whole new dimension. It’s about having a product idea, talking about the concept, doing a market research, talking about segmentation, targeting for a good positioning. Only after the product development, the pricing, the supply, the distribution, the sales force. Promotion and advertising are essential points that must be developed to have a good brand image.

Marketing and Value Definition

Marketing is first and foremost a way to find a product idea. Then, you have to define a concept that will be associated with the product. The next step is to do a market research to identify the segments of the market to invest. It is therefore a matter of determining a set of customers for the product, the targets that can be profitable to be able to define a certain positioning. This first phase is considered strategic marketing. This phase is the most important to produce and especially sell the product in the best conditions.

Marketing developments

Aside from traditional products and services developed by businesses for commercial purposes, thinking about their marketing strategy is also a necessity for all activities, including non-profit ones. Here, the product can be an action, a country, a person, a program, an idea and the like. It can be cultural events, sports or events. Social marketing is a form of marketing which uses techniques and marketing principles in order to bring an audience to abandon, modify, reject or accept a voluntary behavior in their interest, in the interest of the together or group of society.

More and more startups are created in the field of new technologies. But without prior marketing thought, your business may be just a flash of straw. We will see the marketing strategies for startups that have the most success …

Their advantages:

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They attract a maximum of visitors to your website;
They take them there on a journey, because they will like what you say there;
They convert them into active customers, because you will be able to motivate them to take action;
They avoid wasting time, because it’s your business that interests you, not your marketing.
Because having a good marketing strategy is important but it is even more important that it is productive. You must not spend weeks there. Your expertise must remain at the center of your concerns. No need to do your marketing if you do not have time for your main business.

Here are 5 effective and easy-to-design marketing strategies that any startup wishing to take off should use.

1- SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
You must have a profile on the main social networks. But that is not enough. You have to animate them to engage your audience.

Your communication must be done in two ways:

Publication of articles (or summaries of articles) about your activity (product, industry, event, …);
Response and interaction with your readers.
Establishing a personal relationship with your audience is essential to then talk about ‘Business’. Start by talking by focusing on your product. The social media marketing will carry out your promotion at very low costs. Nevertheless, think about planning an advertising budget to develop your community and ensure that your publications are seen (especially on Facebook)

2- THINK “PARTNERSHIP”
In general, you have an interest in outsourcing certain tasks to partners. Building strong relationships with other companies is as valuable as dealing with your customers. Finding good partners will optimize your value chain.

If you are a B2B startup, creating connections, a network, with other companies is even more important. A good way to create good business relations is to set up an exchange of good procedures and expertise. This is your promotion and is helpful to everyone.

3- THINK YOUR PROSPECTS
Your startup needs to think about “How do I meet the needs of my target customers? “. This question seems trivial but it is essential. How many startups are launching with a great idea but do not meet any need and arouse no desire?

If you are unable to make your product attractive, it is likely that you lack strategy. Only realize your prototype when you know that you are meeting an existing need, or that you can create it.

Design your message to put the value of your product forward. But above all, emphasize the benefit to your customers. What interests your potential customers is what they will get out of your offer. Finally, the way is of little importance.

4- MAKE YOUR CUSTOMERS INVOLVE
Your business will last if it engages its customers in a real relationship. It is much easier to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. This will create a positive flow in your cash flow. But it’s not always easy to build loyalty.

For example, you could subscribe to your weekly newsletter. You could also send him exclusive promotions.

You are not looking for customers who will only buy once and then go to see your competitors. Think about “loyalty” right from the start of your startup.

5- DO NOT EXCHANGE YOUR BUZZ
Social media marketing is a great way to get in touch with people. But do not waste too much time discussing anonymously with your “friends” and “followers”. Having thousands of people following you and talking about your product is great. But what interests you is having more customers, buyers. Do not just look for people to talk to, try to convert your readers into ringing and stumbling customers.

Too many entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that if we talk about them, their marketing strategy is promising. But in reality, your marketing will pay only if your customers pay.

CONCLUSION
When launching your startup, building customer loyalty is an important step. For this, set up a strategic marketing that will help you to

easily be found by your prospects (website, B2B meeting, promos visible goods, …);
convince your customers of the interest of buying your product.
Whether online or offline, your goal is the same: to create a strong and lasting relationship with your customers.