As a business owner or a CEO, you can get overwhelmed trying to do everything yourself, implement a marketing strategy and keep it all in-house. Hiring and training the right people for the right tasks is key to delivering a successful business strategy. You could benefit from having a strategic marketing partner to help you move forward your marketing and social media strategy, planning and deliveries while you find and train the right people.
Some people think that all marketing is ‘the colouring-in department that promotes the right product, in the right place, at the right time and that anyone can do it’. There is a lot more to marketing. It takes a lot of thought and understanding of your business to market a product or service successfully, and an important part of this thinking is done through the process of developing your marketing strategy.
“If you concentrate on doing what you know best to do in your business you can do it exceptionally well and outsource the things in your business that you don’t know well,” commented Charlotte Phillips, Managing Director, What is your story? Ltd.
Working with a strategic marketing partner can better serve your customers. A strategic partner is another business with whom you enter into an agreement to help your business to achieve more success. It can give you the opportunity to grow your customer base and improve your business.
They can work with you to create and implement a good marketing strategy. Successfully implementing a marketing strategy is an important key to a profitable business. It defines your vision, mission, business goals, and outlines the steps you need to take to achieve these goals. A well thought out marketing strategy raises awareness and helps your business to aim the products and services to the right people that will buy them. It looks at your customer segmentation and matches the right channels to where your customers are to deliver your communications.
A report on the Strategic Value of Business Alliances and Compatible Partner Matching by Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network found that 56% of respondents felt that strategic partnerships and alliances are extremely important to their businesses, and 15% see that the value of these partnerships is growing in importance. Notably, no one felt that partnerships were unimportant or nonexistent. http://www.bpinetwork.org/pdf/studies/Grow-From-The-Right-Intro-Report.pdf
How to choose a strategic marketing partner to help implement your marketing strategy
When selecting a strategic marketing partner, consider a few factors:
- Your purpose
Know what you want to achieve through having a strategic marketing partnership. Decide whether it is to: acquire more customers, increase company growth, seek new ideas, insights, and innovation.
- Your brand alignment
Do you share similar brand values and business cultures? Working with businesses that you are in synergy with makes for an ideal partnership. Choosing a partner that is just as passionate about your values and cultures as they are on their own will compliment your business.
- Customer segmentation
Do you have similar customer personas? Having matching customer profiles will benefit you both with engaging your target audiences. By looking at their website, blogs, social media followers and comments will give you a good idea.
- Location and language
Consider if you are based in different time zones and speak different languages as this could put a strain on your partnership and become time-consuming for all stakeholders.
- Availability to deliver
What will you benefit from in the relationship? Make sure you both document and agree on the benefits, reporting, and results from the partnership.
A strategic marketing partner will be able to implement your marketing plans skillfully. They can empower you by providing you access to marketing knowledge, resources, and tools to help you achieve your marketing vision, mission, and business goals.
If you are looking for a diligent strategic marketing partner, contact Charlotte to discuss further at marketing@whatisyourstory.co.uk or call 07956 144239 for further information.