New Year marketing resolutions

The New Year is a time for resolutions. A time for drawing-up a roadmap for the coming year. What are your New Year’s marketing resolutions? Your aims and ambitions that will shape the coming years’ campaigns. How will you use marketing to gain or maintain competitive advantage? And how do you do it when 2012 looks like a tough year indeed?

Time to SWOT up…

SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis is an effective tool and a great starting point for designing your marketing resolutions.

Strengths – where does your competitive advantage lay?

Whether it’s a cost advantage or strong differentiation, what sets your business, products or services apart? What do your customers value that competitors find hard to compete with?

Weaknesses – where is there risk?

Are there customer needs you’re not meeting (that a competitor could)? Where are you vulnerable to changing market conditions? What do your customers value that they could get from a competitor but not you?

Opportunities – where will profit and growth come from?

What customer wants could you fulfil? Are there market segments you’re under-exploiting? Can you beneficially reposition your brand, products or services? Where are your competitors weak? What changing market conditions can you exploit?

Threats – what potential changes could damage profits?

How exposed are your products/ services to economic downturn or competitor activity? How price sensitive is your market? Is your brand robust and value-adding? Are changing consumer tastes/ focus devaluing your offering?

Conduct SWOT analysis across your products/ services in each of your target market segments. Then do the same analysis for each of your competitors’ offerings in those segments. The 3 fundamental strategies driving your marketing resolutions should be:

1. Exploiting opportunities and competitor weaknesses through strengths.
2. Opening up new opportunities by overcoming weaknesses.
3. Defending weaknesses from threats.

These strategies aren’t mutually excusive. Can you, in a single marketing effort, exploit current opportunities, create new ones and eliminate a weakness?

Successful marketing and strategic business planning both use SWOT analysis. Both maximise strengths and opportunities whilst minimising weaknesses and threats. The difference is business strategy is about how you do things, marketing is about how others perceive what you do.

Think about how you can influence your target market’s perceptions to achieve each of the 3 fundamental strategies.

About perceptions when times are tough…

When economic conditions start biting and purse strings tighten it can seem that your marketing choices are made for you. Drop prices, launch special offers and dig in for a drawn-out price war. SWOT analysis can give you more options.

If your strength is a strong brand or a differentiated product then competing on price will undermine that strength. If you have the low cost choice then, if your competitors drop their prices, how will you counter that threat?

When times are good and sales strong, you and your customers are more willing to overlook shortcomings. But when times are tough perceived weaknesses are under far more scrutiny. A ‘missing’ feature, a negative review or an unstated benefit can all lose a sale or let a competitor in.

Instead of money-off what opportunities are there to increase perceived value? How can you overcome people’s reluctance to make a purchase? What can you do to reduce perceived risk? When money is tight, people want to feel that they’re making a safe investment. Instead of money off, think about guarantees, warrantees, support etc.

Get analysing and strategising – set your New Years marketing resolutions.