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However, since marketing helps you attract people to your business, it’s essential to know how to attract

them, and even more so who the people are that you want to attract to begin with. Without this critical
information, it will be challenging to be successful in your marketing processes.

The way you can get this information is through strategic marketing. In this post, we’ll define strategic
marketing and explain the different phases of the process that will help you effectively market your
business, attract customers, and drive revenue.

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What is the strategic marketing process?

The strategic marketing process involves conducting research and establishing goals and objectives that
will maximize the effectiveness and success of your overall marketing strategy.

This process is beneficial as it helps you be more intentional with your marketing. You’ll be able to
ensure that you’ve targeted the right audience, entered the right markets, and used the correct
mediums.

You can think of it like this: strategic marketing is the butter you spread on toast. You can have plain
toast as it is, but the butter enhances the flavor and makes it better. Strategic marketing ensures that
your marketing campaigns are well-planned, effective, and shown to the right people.

Essentially, strategic marketing is the act of uncovering the information you’ll need to create an effective
marketing plan and execute successful campaigns.

Strategic Marketing Process Phases

Given that strategic marketing directly influences many elements of your overall marketing strategy, it’s
important to approach the process carefully. Below we’ll discuss the different phases of a strategic
marketing process.

1. Planning Phase

The first stage of strategic marketing is the planning phase. It’s the most critical step, as it is the basis of
your efforts. You’ll want to identify your business purpose, needs, and the goals and objectives you want
to accomplish, as the entire process will help you achieve them.
Without this information, it will be challenging to progress to the next steps as you won’t understand
the purpose behind your marketing efforts, which makes it even harder to create a solid plan that helps
you succeed.

2. Analysis Phase

The analysis phase involves taking an outward look at how your company measures up to your
competitors and your industry. During this stage, many businesses will conduct market research and
competitor analyses.

Market research will give you an understanding of what your industry looks like, like current trends,
market share, and an overall sense of the playing field. The information you discover should also
validate your goals and objectives and let you know if they’re achievable. For example, if your overall
business goal is to bring a new type of fork to market, but there is no industry or consumer demand for
this new type of fork, your efforts won’t be worthwhile.

A competitor analysis will teach you the ins and outs of how your competition works, their position in
the industry, and any possible gaps in the market that you can take advantage of to out-perform them.
You can look at competitors’ customer testimonials to get a sense of what your target audience is
looking for that they don’t provide and use that insight to build a product that your ideal customer
already wants.

You’ll also want to take time to study your target audience and create buyer personas. Aim to gain a
well-rounded understanding of who your customers are, their needs, desires, interests, and where you’ll
find them within the market.

All in all, your analyses should give you an understanding of how competitive you are, and how
competitive you’ll need to be in your final strategy to outshine similar businesses and become a viable
market competitor.

3. Development Phase

Once you have a clear picture of your industry and how you should present yourself in the market, the
next step is to develop your marketing plan. This stage is more closely related to the aspect of marketing
you may be most familiar with, as you’re establishing the marketing tactics that are informed by your
strategic marketing process.
This stage involves defining your marketing mix, which is how you’ll meet the objectives from phase one
concerning the information you discovered during phase two.

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