Strategic marketing planning is an action-oriented plan that will help an enterprise to focus its limited assets on the most relevant potentials to increase sales and attain a sustained competitive edge. The action plan should be broken down into separate components with realistic achievement dates and time frames, identified milestones to achieve each component milestone. While the overall strategic objective may be to improve customer satisfaction or build market share for a specific product or service, each of the individual components may be geared towards achieving a different long-term sales goal. Each sub-component has a specific time frame to reach its intended sales target and/or profit objective.
Marketing tactics are generally categorized into those that are long-term strategies (strategic marketing plans) and those that are short-term strategies (marketing tactics). Long-term plans are designed to sustain competitive advantage by ensuring a product or service remains competitive in the market environment while using the most efficient marketing tactics to reach target audiences over a defined period of time. Short-term marketing strategies are usually used to achieve specific marketing objectives such as building brand awareness, attracting new customers, increasing company visibility or changing customer behavior. Marketing tactics may also include promotional activities like press releases, product promotions, social media activities and the Internet where brand awareness can spread faster than any other channel.
Social media allows companies to engage their clients and customers on a more personal level, providing a platform for clients to voice their opinions and to connect with one another. Social media marketing techniques involve creating useful content and sharing this content through popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Social media marketing automation software helps to measure the effectiveness of the various social media sites and share the information with the appropriate marketing professionals. A marketing automation system is a program or tool that helps businesses to effectively utilize social media to their advantage and achieve their marketing objectives. These programs allow businesses to easily and effectively connect with their clients and customers, allowing them to build stronger connections that result in higher client retention and referrals, ultimately helping the business grow and achieve its goals.