A Growth Based Marketing Strategy — Review

There is a concept known as the “7Ps of Marketing” which basically covers all the essentials you need to be familiar with as you venture into marketing for a product or service. The reason I mention this is because one of the ‘P’s’ is called ‘Processes’ and this essentially means the marketing strategy or process you have to create in order to be a successful marketer.

When I came across this term and the constant phrase “marketing strategy” in my professional life, I thought it simply meant a plan that combines all essential efforts of marketing in other domains. I realise now that my definition of this is a gross understatement to what a marketing strategy actually entails.

In the Growth Marketing Mini-Degree by CXL Institute, I learnt about the actual steps that are involved in creating a strategy, and so in this blog, i’ll be giving you a quick summary.

There are 6 essential steps when coming up with a growth based marketing strategy and they are:

1. Breaking down Marketing’s role in business
2. Coming up with a research plan
3. Interviewing, analysing and augmenting
4. Surfacing insights to drive strategy
5. Putting together a cohesive strategy
6. Executing it all.

The Role of Marketing in a Business

Marketing at its core is essentially composed of these building blocks

1. Product Marketing
2. Brand
3. Demand Generation
4. Events & Community
5. Sales Enablement
6. Public Relations
7. Content & Creative
8. Operations & Analytics

I’m not going to go into detail into all these individual topics because I’ve covered it in earlier blogs. However, the reason I reiterate these core elements is because creating a marketing strategy involves the right balance of all these different events.

While demand generation is the heart of growth marketing, lead generation cannot be ignored and that’s where we must maintain good relations and provide enough support to sales.

Coming up with a Research Plan

Most often I see a lot of seasoned marketers veering away from research as they get more accustomed to their roles ( I’m guilty of this too). The problem is that we are so aware of this and yet can’t seem to stop. So naturally it becomes important to have a plan in place that reminds you to do your research and stay continuously updated.

When we look at marketing research, the one thing we all go to is our SWOT analysis. To those of your who are new to this term — A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique that puts your business in perspective using the following perspectives:Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Using a SWOT analysis helps you identify areas your business can improve and maximise opportunities, while simultaneously determining negative factors that might hinder your chances of success. (Hubspot Definition)

And now if you’re wondering how to conduct a SWOT analysis — Firstly download the Hubspot Template because I believe that is the most helpful. Secondly, fill out your points based on this:

Interviewing, Analysing and Augmenting

This is now the part where we need to understand and interpret our research data and perform actions based on the findings, all while remembering that we are working according to our SWOT Analysis.

1. Analyse available data
2. Interview stakeholders about the market
3. Augment data

To analyse the data and formulate what we require, we must be methodical and aggregate the data needed. Keep in mind how to categorise objective and anecdotal data into Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. And finally once we have all this in place — Go outside the 4 walls of your office to learn. Talk to real people!

Surfacing Insights to Drive Strategy

The goal of marketing research isn’t to accumulate data, it’s to uncover key insights about what’s working, what’s broken, and what hasn’t been tried yet. This is where our SWOT Analysis matrix comes back and we can use it as a framework to help find and organise insights so they’re both useful and actionable.

Additionally, in the context of the SWOT analysis, something I learned in this course is to bring back the earlier core areas of marketing and inject them into each of the SWOT quadrants. Then further break down how they’re doing in each of these quadrants.What are the points under each that we learned?

The reason I think this is important is that this is an additional layer of categorisation. There’s a lot that can happen in here, and our goal is to figure out connections and the overall story that’s being told so that we have an idea of what makes sense in order for a strategy. If we don’t have categories, sometimes it can be overwhelming.

Putting Together a Cohesive Strategy

All your research, analysis, and consensus-building leads to this moment. It’s time to formulate your strategy. Which core marketing areas will you focus on, and for which personas? Will you explore new channels, with a new spin on a value proposition? And how are you going to tie all of this together with a unifying campaign or set of campaigns?

Now while we create a marketing strategy, these are some of the most important considerations to keep in mind:

• Align to corporate vision
• Stay focused
• Make it realistic and achievable
• Make it measurable
• Think of your timeline
• Work in an agile and iterative way
• Remember your stakeholders and how they are involved

Next, pull up your company vision/mission statement and identify your main marketing objectives. By doing this you have a reference point for your strategy and ergo a strong base.

When you create goals and objectives, keep in mind the SMART framework:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timely

Setting SMART key results ensures that you’re able to evaluate how your strategy performed upon completion.

Executing it All

The final leg is getting your strategy approved and being able to implement it. So to start, set yourself up for success with a big kickoff meeting, flexible tools, and best practices. It’s critical for a marketing strategy to have others onboard. Hold a kickoff meeting to explain the methods behind the strategies and what folks should expect to see as results. Connect the dots between marketing objectives and the high-level company mission.

Once your plan is approved and you are ready to get started, don’t forget to always keep your stakeholders informed and also create a method by which everyone can track your progress.

And so you’re ready!

This is how to create a marketing strategy in a few basic steps, if you’d like to learn more, definitely check out CXL Institute’s Growth Marketing Mini-Degree.