What is strategic marketing, how can you use it to increase sales

For any business to be successful they need to develop a marketing plan that will effectively market their product or service, this plan will be a road map for the company to follow to successfully market your business. The marketing plan will establish objectives, recommended actions and timing for achieving the objectives. But a strategic marketing plan takes into account the market things that can affect the business, such as competitors, trends, technological advances, and any other environmental factor that affects the customers.

By developing a strategic marketing plan you can increase your sales because you are looking ahead at environmental factors that can affect your business and making plans for them now. This does not mean that your strategic marketing plan can not be changed due to unforeseen circumstances but by using a variety of marketing techniques.

Here are some ideas to use when using strategic marketing to increase your sales.

Idea one:
Place ads on websites that your target customers frequently visit. This would involve buying ad space from other people who have designed websites that your target customers would visit. But before you can even get this far you will have to figure out who your target customers are. If you are looking to target young adults for your target customers a great place to purchase ad space is from websites such as MySpace or dating websites. By placing ads on websites that your target customers visit frequently you are increasing the exposure of your company and you are increasing your chances that your target customers will click on your ad and visit your website.

Idea two:
Another way to increase your search engine ranking and market your website is to place links to your website on other people's websites. Many people are willingly to do this in exchange for you placing their link on your website.

Idea three:
Pay per click advertising is a great form of marketing to use. This method is also cost effective because you decide on the amount you want to spend each month on advertising and on bidding for key words or phrases, once you have reached that amount the company will take off your website until the following month. One of the best features about this kind of advertising is that you only pay when your ad has been clicked.

Idea four:
Choose a domain name that refers to your company or the products and/or services that your company offers. The domain name might or might not have anything to do with search engine placement but by having a name that relates to your company it will be easier for your customers to recall the website.

Idea five:
On your website you should provide useful content for your customers. By providing useful information and having a well designed site you can inspire confidence with your customers. Also make sure that your website is user friendly. There is nothing worse then going to a website that feeds its customers a lot of useless information and then is extremely hard to navigate through. By keeping you website simple and to the point you are helping to keep your customers happy which will increase the chances of them returning.

Idea six:
Analyze your key words or phrases, as well as your competitors' key words and phrases. There is software out there that allows you to see how many people are searching for your key words and it will even provide you with the top ten companies that are using those key words. By keeping your key words easy and simple you might have to pay more for the common words but you can increase the amount of traffic to your website.

Just remember that your strategic marketing plan is a road map for the success of your business.