Marketing Strategy Framework – Marketing is a unique animal. Combining creativity, analytical thinking, data consideration and project management, the modern marketer must possess a wide range of skills and have several tools at their disposal. Sure, you can delegate some work, but that also means you’re responsible for getting a lot of people on the same page…some of them working in different countries. Instead of letting frustration build, you can use tools to make your job easier. More precisely, the marketing framework. In this section, we’ll discuss what a marketing strategy framework is, the benefits of using it, the best marketing model, and how to decide which one is best for you. What is a marketing strategy framework? A marketing strategy framework describes how you will create your marketing plan and deliver your marketing content to your audience in a way that will help you achieve your marketing goals. It is often a template or visual representation of what you want to achieve. You can think about it this way: you would never dream of approaching your marketing with a “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” attitude because that would be a disaster for your organization. Instead, you’ll spend days, weeks, and even months identifying your target audience, where they spend their time, and determining the perfect way to reach and communicate the benefits of your product or service in your marketing plan. Your marketing strategy framework takes everything a step further and, as mentioned above, ensures the success of your marketing plan because you’ll be sharing your content with your audience at the right time on the most relevant channels that are more likely to generate results. Benefits of a Marketing Framework A marketing framework doesn’t just keep you focused on the task at hand. As your company grows and your team grows together, you need to find a way to communicate with each member of your marketing department, no matter where they work or what tasks they are responsible for. Creating a marketing framework is the best way to ensure that everyone knows what to do and how to do it. Additional benefits of using a marketing framework include: Creating a home for templates, guides, tools, and assets that all marketers in your organization should have access to. Create and upload an approved expression for the organization. Improve your marketing which in turn increases your company’s growth and bottom line. It allows teams to compare different strategies and determine the best route. Clearly communicate who is responsible for what and make it easy to move people from one role to another. Save time by limiting “redos” – areas that are often prone to errors and therefore need to be reworked. Additionally, your framework will help you predict customer behavior and the revenue you can see. As a result, it will help your team to be more efficient and produce more efficiently. Marketing the best marketing framework has probably been around since prehistoric times when cave entrepreneurs designed sophisticated spears and tried to sell them to their less “working” partners. Okay, that might not be true, but marketing has been a necessary aspect of business for a long time, and in that time, smart marketers have designed models and frameworks to make it (and you) easier. Let’s look at some traditional models as well as some newer frames. Traditional Marketing Model 1. 7Ps Marketing Mix This model is widely used to consider the stages of a business strategy, starting from conception and execution to evaluation. Ps stands for: Product: What do you sell? Prince: How much is it? Place: Where will the product be sold? Promotion: How will you communicate with your audience? People: Who is involved in production, promotion and distribution? Process: How do you deliver to customers? Physical evidence: How will you prove to customers that your business exists? If you use the 7P model, you will have the opportunity to analyze and optimize every aspect of your company and strategy to improve your business. Source Figure 2. The STP Marketing Model The STP model is a top-down approach that focuses on how companies approach customers and help deliver personalized (and relevant) messages to their audiences. STP stands for segmentation (dividing your audience into different segments), targeting (who will be most receptive to your product) and positioning (how to make your product most attractive to your audience) and has helped many companies transition to using social media. media for publishing content. Source Figure 3. Porter’s Five Forces While most marketing frameworks focus on the product itself and the audience, Porter’s Five Forces look at external influences that can affect profitability. These include: The strength of the supplier, how many other suppliers there are, how they differ and how much the product costs. Buyer power is the ability of buyers to influence the decisions made by the company. The threat of substitution is how your product compares to others in the market. Threats of new entry are all barriers you may face when entering a market. Competitive advantage is another external force that affects how your product compares to the competition. This model will help you determine how competitive your business environment is. Image Source Now, let’s take a look at some of the newer models that will hit the marketing scene. While not a more traditional model, they take into account the current marketing climate and often focus on startups. Modern Marketing Model 4. Pirate Metrics or “AARRR!” No, you don’t need to be blindfolded or wearing a parrot to use this frame. Developed by serial startup founder Dave McClure, Pirate Metrics allows you to see how your customers are traveling through the purchase journey and what areas need improvement. AARRR stands for: Acquisition: Where do potential clients find you? Facebook ads, content, paid search and more. Activation: What steps does a prospect take when they land on your website? Depending on the business, this may include registering an account, receiving free gifts in exchange for email, filling out a profile, etc. Retention: After they leave your website, do prospects or customers come back? how often Revenue: How do you get money from your customers? Consider metrics such as conversion rate, shopping cart size, and LTV, or customer lifetime value. Referrals: If customers like it, they tell others, and you get more customers. This lowers your CAC or customer acquisition cost as loyal customers will attract new leads to you. Source Figure 5. Lean Analytics Stages Developed by Alistair Croll and Ben Yoskovitz, the Lean Analytics Stages framework combines aspects of different models and is ideal for promoting startup growth. There are five pillars to this model: 1. Empathy During the product development phase, you’ll spend most of your time listening to customers, empathizing with their challenges, and accepting as many suggestions as you want to make. Once you have identified the problems that can be solved to create a minimum product (MVP), you can move on to the next stage. 2. Stickiness Focus on engagement and retention when you can create something that generates returning customers. If you have an engaged base and a low dropout rate, you can move on to the third phase. 3. Virality Before you try to attract customers by spending a lot of advertising, focus on existing customers. As your organic growth rate increases, you can move on to the fourth phase. 4. Income Without money, you will quickly shut down. Pay attention to customer acquisition cost metrics to ensure customers are spending more money than it costs to acquire them. Once you reach your income goal, you can move on to the final phase. 5. Scale You have gained a clear knowledge of your product and market. Now is the time to increase revenue from your current market and potentially enter new markets. Source Figure 6. Hook model No, it has nothing to do with the Pirate Metrics we talked about earlier, but it complements the flexibility and virality we discussed in Lean Analytics. The hook model was developed by Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Create Habit-Forming Products. They believe that the products they buy and use the most get their status because they are part of their normal behavior. As marketers, we can take advantage of it by understanding the cycle: Triggers: The start of the cycle is often an external trigger like a push notification. However, as the cycle continues, negative internal emotions become triggers when we try to reduce those negative emotions by taking action. Take action: The easier it is to do something, the more people will do it. Products that make shopping a painless and easy habit. Variable reward: Expectation of reward is a powerful motivator. Variability raises the expectation, making prospects and customers more likely to buy into it