Why you need advertising as part of your strategic marketing plan

Strategic marketing and advertising plans spell out the way a company intends to approach marketing and branding, achieve goals and objectives, engage with audiences, and handle any challenges or obstacles along the way.

While both work in combination, often at the same time, a company’s strategic marketing and advertising strategies are not the same. Understanding the difference between the two and how they work together is critical to your marketing success. 

Strategic Marketing vs. Advertising – What’s The Difference?

A strategic marketing plan is a detailed framework of how a company intends to communicate with their target audiences, raise brand awareness, and convince consumers to buy-in to a brand and buy a company’s products or services. 

It includes absolutely everything, from a detailed analysis of target audiences, developing personas, and understanding every stage of the buyer’s journey, to a SWOT analysis, as well as the channels that will most effectively communicate the message.

Now, this is where advertising comes in. You need to include advertising as part of your overall strategic marketing plan; otherwise, you’re missing out on a critical piece of the puzzle in getting your messages out across different channels to increase conversions. Once you have identified your market opportunities and determined your organization’s marketing goals and vision, it’s time to invest in your advertisement strategy.

How To Incorporate Advertising Into Your Strategic Marketing Plan

Whether you advertise on Facebook or a billboard, advertising encompasses both modern advertising approaches and traditional advertising methods into one comprehensive strategy. 

A successful marketing strategy involves incorporating both methods for maximum impact. The modern consumer uses an average of six touchpoints before conversion, so ensuring consistent presence across both platforms is a necessity. While digital advertising now rivals conventional mediums, there is no denying the fact that traditional advertising still offers great promise.

Here are some tips on how you can integrate advertising into your marketing plan successfully. 

Align Your Strategy With Your Organizational Goals

Your advertising should reflect the unique value and differentiators that help you stand out from the competition. Here are several questions that should form the basis of your strategy:

• Are you offering a product or a service?
• What is your brand voice?
• What sets you apart from your industry competitors?

Your strategic marketing plan should answer all of these questions, and your advertising strategy should use them to guide each step.  

Determine Your Advertising Budget

As one of the essential components of your strategic marketing plan, advertising consists of a fair share of your marketing budget.

This budget directly influences which channels you advertise on, as well as the frequency of your ads. A successful advertising strategy makes smart use of the allowed budget, enabling it to extract maximum ROI.

For instance, if your organization has a small budget, you would not want to invest in a commercial that runs late at night. That money can be utilized more efficiently – for example, by targeting high-traffic, niche-specific keywords.

Follow Your Target Audience

The underlying goal of every strategy should be to amass as much exposure as possible. The more people you present yourself to, the higher the number of leads you will get.

When incorporating advertising into your marketing strategy, analyze your target audience to decide on the best channels that can maximize your exposure.

If your target audience consists mostly of young adults, you are better off crafting a comprehensive digital advertising campaign that leverages different platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat. However, the reverse isn’t true; if you are targeting an older demographic, then you don’t have to stick with traditional mediums alone.  65% of people aged 50 – 65 years actively use Facebook, so your campaign has to include traditional advertising as well as digital.

Your advertising campaign has the power to make or break your marketing efforts. One wrong decision – for instance, choosing the wrong media channel – can mean all your hard work (and your budget) will go down the drain.

A successful campaign not only manages to target the right communication channels, but also hits the mark with the frequency, demographic, and other factors. Contact us today to learn how to incorporate advertising into your strategic marketing campaign.