Question

Please outline the core elements of an effective marketing strategy and how the role of the marketing manager influence the overall development and implementation of the marketing strategy.

Answer 1

6 core elements of an effective marketing strategy

1. Defined target market and customer personas

The most important element that should form the base of a content strategy, is to know who it is for. This is where defining your target market and customer personas comes in.

Before defining any aspect of the content strategy, it is important to determine who your business is targeting in the market. Ideally, the target market is defined as the general demographics that would be interested or could be convinced into purchasing your products/services.

2. A documented content strategy

The very next step that a marketer should take is to define the content strategy and document in completely. Most marketers assume that starting a blog and becoming active on various social channels is all that is required to be done.

3. Consistent quality content production

The next core element of a successful content strategy, is to consistently produce quality content as per the laid down plan. It is necessary that a marketer defines a timeline for which the content strategy is created and how it would be executed to completion in that period.

4. Aggressive syndication and easy sharing

Two elements that work together to directly impact the success of a content strategy, are aggressive syndication and easy sharing of the content pieces produced. It is important that you syndicate the content on various digital channels to give it exposure – social media, content management platforms, communities, groups, newsletters, push notifications, etc. But while doing so, it is also important to ensure that all the syndication done is on platforms that have at least some segment of your target audience.

Similarly, each of the content pieces created should be easily shareable. From including social sharing buttons at the beginning, end or along side each content pieces, to giving the ability to email it to a friend or save it for reading later, a marketer needs to ensure easy sharing for the reader.

For example, here’s a campaign that asks them to share the blog post they just read on social if they liked it. Since it is just a simple action, readers are more likely to complete it.

5. Analytics and reporting

Another aspect that plays a vital role in determining the success of a content strategy, is measuring the results each effort brings. It is important to understand what content works the best on which channel to be able to make the most of it.

Using tools like Google Analytics can help you understand how your target market is responding to your content strategy

6. Optimization and improvisation

If a content strategy works, good. But if it doesn’t, most marketers choose to sack it altogether and work on a new one from scratch instead of improvising on the existing one. The one thing that this leads to is resource mismanagement.

Role of marketing manager:

There are various kinds of roles that are played by the marketing managers in the implementation of the marketing strategy. In the case of the Toyota Prius, the marketing managers were very concerned to increase the popularity of their cars in the business market. They played the role to frame a long-term vision and objectives by adopting the hybrid approach and launching a car that imposes less harm to the external environment (Halbright & Dunn, 2010). The marketing managers were also involved in the market research to analyze the business market in a more effective manner. After the market research, the last step followed by the marketing managers is to implement the marketing strategies to gain more successful outcomes.