You probably already learned in marketingschool that an advertising strategy or different types of advertisingstrategies should always be anchored or incorporated in your generalmarketing plan. Your marketing plan outlines what your goals are andhow you intend to act on your goals. Your advertising strategy, on the other hand, identifies availableoptions for your business in order to get through your targetclientele. This is how you should do things. However, in the realworld, you may not have any more time in which to outline yourmarketing plan properly or to write down your advertising strategies.More often than not, you will have to do things on an ad-hoc basis.
If this is the case, then it would be a good idea to at least have astructured method in coming up with your advertising strategy. A goodcommunications strategy starts with the SWOT analysis. Through thismethodology, you would be able to understand your business? productsand services strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Byknowing these important issues, you would be able to develop acommunications strategy that is more focused and more precise.
A SWOT analysis may sound intimidating but it is actually easy to do.Before diving right into SWOT, we must first understand the two majorparts of an advertising strategy:
1. Assessment ? The assessment give you an idea of what is currentlygoing on in the market. It will let you look back and understand whatis happening in the present. It will also alert you to what the futureholds for your product or services, with your competitors, and withyour customers and clients.
2. Action ? This part will tell you what your clients will do about themost significant opportunities or problems presented by a particularsituation. What marketing collaterals such as brochures, flyers orprint stickers would work best to entice clients?
The 'What do do' part is directly linked to your 'What's going on'part. For instance, your SWOT analysis could actually reveal that thecurrent recession is the one that is threatening your business. Itcould also come up with results that your products and services havenot been getting the expected response by target customers because ofserious competition from other businesses with the same products as youhave going all out on discounts and price slashes.
This situation would require you to develop immediate actions. These actions might include the following:
? Re-establish your market position. Because your products or servicesare worth it, consumers should take another look. Yes, consumers canget something cheaper but they are not always guaranteed to have thatquality or that excellent service which you can provide.
? Create a stronger brand personality. Why are limited editions moreexpensive than the regular ones? This is because many people aspire tohave it. You can create this image through marketing collaterals suchas sticker printing.
Essentially, your ad strategy, even if it is having sticker printing orlabel printing services done in order to come up with quality stickersand labels, must deal with the big strategic issues of branding,positioning, direct marketing and media rapport.
