Marketing for SMEs: why is it time to get started?
You're probably wondering what marketing has to do with the industry and what it can bring to your SME or design office.
💡Well, believe it or not, a well-constructed marketing strategy can help you achieve many goals! (And no, marketing isn't just about advertising ^^ see our article on the subject).
You will be able to (non-exhaustive list):
- ✅Increase profitability
- ✅Stand out from the competition
- ✅Reach new targets
- ✅Develop new offerings
- ✅Bemore visible
Often, you don't think about it... and you stay focused on direct relationships, word of mouth, trade shows, without establishing a specific marketing strategy. This has worked for many years and may continue to work for a while longer for the lucky ones, but overall, times are changing. Building a solid and realistic marketing strategy is becoming necessary to be and remain successful. Let us explain!
Marketing strategy in industry: definition
This can be defined as analytical work and the developmentof an action plan implemented over the medium or long term to achieve various types of objectives.
🎯For example, your goal could be to achieve a corporate objective, which consists of establishing internal and external communication that will lead to the affirmation of a strong and distinctive industrial identity (for example, if you want to reposition your brand).
🎯If you have a purely commercial objective , such as prioritizing certain customers or simply achieving a specific sales target, marketing strategy will also be essential.
🎯Finally, you can also use this strategy if you need to meet a human resources objective with the famous employer brand.
As you can see, marketing is an integral part of your overall strategy! It focuses on building your offerings, your market positioning, your customers, the way you communicate, and more. It will enable you to analyze consumer needs and define all the actions you need to take to tailor your offerings to the desires of your target audience.
The marketing strategy can be developed globally within the company, or assigned to a specific product or product family, which is why it is possible to have several strategies at the same time.
🏭In B2B and industry in particular, marketing has a clear role to play (and this is increasingly true!). As we have explained, many industrial companies are aware ofthe rapid advance of digital technology, but many are not yet exploiting all the marketing levers at their disposal to generate new business opportunities, for example.
However, professionals' purchasing processes are becoming increasingly digitalized, and industry players must adapt to these new behaviors. Today, ignoring industrial marketing could well cost you your place in the market!
To get you started, here are a few tips...
Building your marketing strategy in the industry
A solid marketing strategy plan consists of four main steps to follow:
1 – Analyze your competitors and set clear goals:
Setting goals is essential to any strategy. For example, you can set quantitative goals in terms of revenue and profitability, but you can also set more qualitative goals. It's up to you to define them according to the needs of your SME or design office.
To help you, your goals can follow the "SMART" method: they must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
Of course, you will also need to analyze the competitive landscape, both to draw inspiration and to develop criteria that will set you apart from your competitors.
Here, you can follow three main approaches when studying your competitors:
- ✏️Benchmark the communication of key competitors
- ✏️Identify strengths to emulate and weaknesses to avoid
- ✏️Fostering reflection on differentiation criteria
This will enable you to understand the market in which you operate and to offer a competitive product or service.
2- Target your potential customers
🎯“Target. In marketing, what you need to hit to stay afloat!”
The aim here is to identify the groups of buyers who are most attracted to the product and its specific features compared to competing offers.
Logically, in order to reach your target audience, it is important to understand exactly who they are, so that you can then attempt to win over and retain this group of potential customers. After all, making an offer without any targeting would be like shooting without aiming.
To do this, it is useful to create one or more personas. A persona is a stereotypical individual who symbolizes the typical buyer profile, and therefore your main target audience. This exercise will enable you to identify the issues, challenges, and constraints that your future customers (as individuals rather than businesses) face on a daily basis.
3 – Establish your marketing action plan
Once these first two steps have been completed, you will look for ways to achieve the objectives defined previously.
There are various strategies that can be adapted to this section, such as the 4Cs technique : Customer, Cost, Convenience, Communication, or the 5Es: Emotion, Customer Experience, Exchange, Engagement, Essence. There is also SAVE: Solution, Access, Value, Education.
The best-known strategy remains the 4Ps, which has been in use since the 1960s. It corresponds to four words: price, product, promotion, and place, which are the categories in which marketing decisions should be made.
The important thing in your action plan is to take into account the rise of digital and inbound techniques. Don't just focus on "traditional" actions such as trade shows, brochures, etc. Your website, email campaigns, and social media communications, particularly LinkedIn in the industrial sector, must be at the heart of your strategy to achieve your objectives.
4- Monitoring results: measuring them and knowing how to adapt
Finally, it is important to trackthe progress of your results.
Taking stock of the actions you have taken, what has worked and what hasn't, will enable you to adapt and refine your marketing strategy.
📈To help you evaluate results, numerous performance indicators are available, such as conversion rate, engagement rate, or simply the percentage of customers acquired.
Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy: How They Complement Each Other
In a PMI, the marketing strategy and sales strategy are not separate entities, but two pillars that must work hand in hand to ensure the growth of the company. The marketing strategy deals with the attractiveness of the offer and the creation of demand, while the sales strategy focuses on converting this demand into concrete sales.
The two must align: marketing generates qualified leads, while sales teams convert those leads into customers. An effective sales strategy is based on the foundations laid by marketing, such as targeting the right market segments, defining value propositions, and creating a consistent message. Conversely, an effective sales strategy must take into account feedback from the field and objections encountered during the sales process, and adjust marketing actions accordingly.
By integrating a 360° that links marketing and sales, SMEs can maximize their effectiveness and offer a seamless customer experience, from initial contact to loyalty.
Have you read our article, but don't feel confident about accomplishing all this on your own in your industrial SME/design office? Don't panic! MITI is here to support you. Feel free to contact us for any marketing strategy needs.
