Marketing is how you communicate your products and services to your audiences.
At JG Creative, our focus is on brand and communications (marketing), and people often aren’t clear about the difference.
What’s the difference between Brand and Marketing?
Brand is who you are. The identity of your organisation and why you exist.
Marketing is telling people. Getting the right messages out to the right people to cause the desired response.
They do impact each other. Your marketing helps to shape the perception of your brand, and your brand identity informs your marketing strategy.
A useful analogy is that your brand is who you are as a person, and marketing is the way you dress and what you say! You might change you clothes, tone and language depending on who you’re speaking to but that doesn’t change your values, goals and aspirations.
Don’t know where to start with your marketing?
It’s really important that you start with a strategy before moving onto a tactical plan.
A Marketing Strategy should come from your Organisational Strategy and set your goals and objectives. It defines your target market, value proposition, and clarifies your approach to reaching and engaging with your audience.
- Target market: Define who your audiences are along with their needs, behaviours, and characteristics.
- Competitors: Who else does what you do?
- Value proposition: A statement about how your organisation can meet the needs of your audience better than your competitors.
- Positioning: How your organisation will differentiate itself and establish a unique place in your market.
- Marketing mix: The four P’s of marketing – Product, Price, Place, Promotion. Clarify your offering.
- Marketing goals and objectives: Include clear, measurable and achievable targets.
- Budget and resources: Include both the budget and time you have to implement your strategy. Remember the risk of not achieving your goals.
- Metrics and KPIs: How will you measure success?
- Timeline: Broad milestones and key activities.
From your strategy comes your Marketing Plan. This is a more detailed document that acts as roadmap for how to achieve your strategy.
It outlines your tactics for a specified time period. The purpose is to coordinate and focus your marketing efforts to achieve your objectives
A typical plan includes:
- Executive summary: A brief overview of what’s included
- Situational analysis: A review of your company’s internal and external environment, including a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and even a PESTLE analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental.
- Target market: Clarify your exact target audiences with profiles.
- Channels: Where is your audience? This is where you need to be.
- Marketing objectives: Create SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound).
- Tactics and actions: Describe the specific tactics and actions you will take to execute the plan, including timelines and budget estimates.
- Responsibilities: Who is going to take ownership of each of the actions and do you have the skills in-house or will you need to use external support?
- Metrics and KPIs: How often will you review results?
- Evaluation and adjustment: Once you’ve done a review build in time to make any adjustments required to achieve your goals.
But why would I need a Marketing Strategy?
When we work with you to communicate successfully, we know the importance of having a Strategy in place. While it can be tempting to just ‘get going’ this can lead to a scattergun approach to your marketing which can be costly and not reap rewards. A well-thought out strategy and plan are essential for improving the return on investment for your marketing activities.
Get in touch if you’d like our support to bring your Marketing Strategy to life!
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Alison Bowett
Studio Manager, JG Creative