Digital Marketing Blog

Ingenex works closely with Lunch Ann Arbor Marketing (LA2M) to help the marketing community in Ann Arbor share ideas and drive networking.  Today’s LA2M event featured Dee Davey, owner of Creative Ideas Marketing and the Voice of LA2M, as she presented her perspectives on strategic market planning.

By Dee’s count, there are more than 200 different tools and tactics that companies can use to market their businesses, ranging from old school advertising methods to new media technologies.  Which ‘silver bullet’ is right for your business?  According to Dee, the answer is…that depends.

In order to get a clear picture of which tools are the best fit for your business, you must conduct strategic market planning, a process that takes a deep look at what your business is, who your customers are and how you can best meet their needs.  While the final tactics will differ between companies and industries, the overall process applies regardless of whether you’re an established company, an entrepreneur or a worker in transition.

At it’s heart, strategic market planning addresses the tough questions that will help to provide focus to your business.  What is your business?  What are you great at?  Who are your customers?  What do they demand?  How can we bring it all together?  Strategic market planning serves to align your company’s marketing efforts with your business objectives in order to minimize wasteful spending and maximize return on your marketing investment.  This in-depth analysis of your company’s market also helps to uncover new opportunities and address unmet client needs before your competitors do.

Strategic market planning incorporates several key elements of your company’s business.  This includes your integrated brand identity, core competencies, customer needs, trends in your market, changes in the business environment, competitive pressures and the overall marketing mix.

The process for conducting strategic market planning is twofold; an internal discovery program will help you to build a persona around your customers’ behavior and customize your products or services so you can deliver something customers truly value.  An external view uses primary and secondary research to help your company gather and analyze market intelligence in order to understand the environment and learn from both customers and industry experts.  Oftentimes, the most valuable intelligence comes from unexpected sources such as employees who interact with customers on a direct level or experts in unrelated industries!

In summary, Dee’s presentation helped today’s LA2M attendees to learn about how to use strategic market planning to understand customer needs, refine your business model to match those needs and deliver your offerings at the perfect time.

LA2M is a lunch group that meets every Wednesday at 11:45 am to discuss the latest digital and new marketing trends, strategies and techniques.  Join us in person at Conor O’Neill’s or view the presentation online at the LA2M Live Stream.

Tags:   ann arbor · digital marketing · LA2M · Strategic Market Planning1 Comment