The A in the STRATEGY Framework stands for Awareness. In my new book, ‘Marketing Strategy’, I explain how Awareness leads to profit (and how to make it work for you)
If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know all about my innovative marketing framework STRATEGY.
STRATEGY is a framework which takes you through every step of planning, creating, executing, and learning from a campaign:
S - Scenario: taking stock of your situation.
T - Target: building objectives for your campaign.
R - Reach: understanding your audience.
A - Awareness: creating a marketing plan.
T - Tactics: finding creative ways to deliver your campaign.
E - Execution: bringing your campaign to life.
G - Generate: gather and analyse ongoing data.
Y - Yield: analyse your performance and draw actionable insights for next time.
The book ‘Marketing Strategy’ by Jenna Tiffany, has a full chapter devoted to each of these steps. Marketing mentor Joolz Joseph FCIM describes it as “A superbly practical, up-to-date and comprehensive marketing textbook” - packed with case studies, helpful frameworks, interviews, and everything else you need in order to become a world-class strategic marketer.
I’ve been giving you all some tasters of what you can expect from my book by going through the letters of the acronym in blog posts. So far, we’ve gone through Scenario, Target, and Reach, and today I’m going to talk about Awareness.
As always, you’ll get the full story in ‘Marketing Strategy’, so order your copy now if you want to know more!
What is the Awareness stage of STRATEGY all about?
The Awareness stage is all about taking what you’ve gathered so far - your scenario, your competitor research, your objectives, your detailed audience knowledge - and building it into a plan which will place your campaign exactly where it needs to be.
To do this, my advice is to create a marketing plan.
Here’s how I describe a good marketing plan in my book, ‘Marketing Strategy’:
“A good marketing plan is a blueprint for marketing your products and services. Essentially, a marketing plan is a step-by-step guide which details how to deliver your marketing strategy. You began to ‘plan’ your strategic approach by analysing the macro and micro-environments of your organization in Chapter 2. A marketing plan builds on this by identifying the resources needed, and the areas which require the most focus (we’ll explore this in Chapter 6).
As we uncovered in Chapter 1, everyone in the organization must be moving in the same direction and fulfilling the organization’s vision. Your marketing plan will improve cross-team communication, and make sure that everyone knows what’s required of them to achieve the brand’s goals.”
So, how do you come up with a great marketing plan? I recommend using the 7Ps.
Creating a marketing plan with the 7Ps
In my last blog, I took you through the 4Ps: Price, Place, Promotion, and Product. These are useful when positioning your campaign.
However, when it comes to creating a marketing plan, it’s worth considering three more Ps: People, Process, and Physical Evidence.
Originally, these three new Ps were added to help market services - but I find that their potential goes beyond service marketing. In my experience, they’re fantastic for making sure that your marketing plan is well-balanced, without too much emphasis on any one factor.
I go through the whole 7Ps model in detail in Chapter Five of ‘Marketing Strategy’, but here’s a quick run down of the last three Ps (you can find the first 4 detailed in my blog on Reach):
People: This is one of the most important elements of the marketing mix. This P is all about the people who are involved in the marketing and conversion process. The people they encounter can dramatically alter a customer’s experience of a brand, so it’s worth considering this P in detail.
Process: Process refers to everything that needs to happen to get a product/service to the customer. Every part of this process is an opportunity to engage with customers and make a great impression, so it’s a vital (but often neglected) aspect of any marketing plan.
Physical evidence: There’s a strong psychological element to marketing. ‘Physical evidence’ covers a lot of this by forcing you to consider how the environment in which your product/service is placed will make the customer feel. If it’s not a great environment, how can you manage or mitigate this through your marketing? If the physical setting is part of the experience, how can your marketing highlight this?
If it’s not quite clear how all of this goes towards making an amazing marketing plan - don’t worry. I explain everything in detail in Marketing Strategy: Overcome Common Pitfalls and Create Effective Marketing.
Order your copy of the book today and get 20% discount
About Jenna Tiffany
Jenna Tiffany, award-winning marketer, has been recognized as one of the top 50 marketers to follow in the world. She is the Founder and Strategy Director at marketing agency Let’sTalk Strategy, providing strategic consultancy services across the digital marketing mix. She is a Chartered Marketer and awarded Fellow of the Institute of Data & Marketing (IDM) with over ten years’ marketing experience, and has consulted on marketing strategy with brands such as Shell, Hilton and World Duty Free.
Jenna is a keynote speaker, having spoken at hundreds of marketing events worldwide and is an elected member of the prestigious DMA UK Email Marketing Council. Jenna is also a qualified teacher regularly teaching marketing at universities. She regularly gets interviewed for her thoughts on marketing strategy and the latest trends.