Are you starting a new fashion line? Maybe you want to be the next big name in gaming? Whatever the case, you need a business development strategy and a supporting marketing strategy.
Have you ever wondered how organizations create a business development strategy? Have you considered the steps that go into marketing strategy development? What’s the difference between a business development strategy and marketing strategy development?
They’re both concerned with increasing the amount of business an organization does.
Business development strategies are centered on creating better processes to generate revenue. Marketing strategies, on the other hand, are all about the customer. The process starts from the customer becoming aware of your brand and goes all the way to retaining your customer. These are two aspects of business that work hand in hand. A strategy development process is crucial to both aspects.
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What Is Strategy Development?
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Things To Remember
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Business Development Strategy
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Marketing Strategy Development
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Conclusion
What Is Strategy Development?
A strategy development process involves research, weighing strategic options, choosing the best way forward and deciding how to meet organizational objectives.
Here’s what a strategy development process involves:
- Identify your current position
- Understand how the organization reached this position
- Understand the business environment and your organization’s place in it
- Set clear goals
- Pinpoint strategic tactics and options
- Outline the objectives of the strategy
- Inform concerned stakeholders about the strategy
- Execute the strategy
- Measure the success of that strategy
That answers the question, “What is strategy development?”
Things To Remember
It’s also important to understand that strategies must have the following key features:
- A strategy should be able to adapt to changes while remaining focused on business goals. This means being responsive to the business and market environments and staying true to the organization’s values and culture
- Creative and challenging strategies help organizations outmaneuver their competition while continuously inspiring their employees
- Business strategies have to be realistic and focused on actionable and achievable goals
Business Development Strategy
There are seven main aspects to creating a successful business development strategy:
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Identify Your Market
This is key to creating an effective business development strategy. You need to know who your customers are to target your strategy toward the right people. This also helps you understand your current position in the market.
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Understand Your Market
Market research takes time and effort, yet it’s integral to understanding what strategies are likely to work better. Having a clear understanding of your target customers helps you create strategies that speak to them. This is also where you understand where you stand in the market and what you need to do to achieve your goals.
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Define Your Goals
What is the intention of your business development strategy? Define clear, actionable and achievable goals.The goals set here may not directly generate revenue. However, the intention is that the overall strategy produces results that will help your business grow in the near future.
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Understand What Channels To Use
The information you’ve gathered will help you decide what channels and strategies to use. This is where you begin to form your business development strategy.
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Network
Networking is essential to become a competitive player in the business world. This involves putting yourself out there and meeting with people in the business space that you intend to become a part of./
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Referrals
Referrals could come from friends and family; this is a great way to get started. It goes without saying that referrals that come from your professional network are likely to be more fruitful. This is how you leverage the networking that you’ve done.
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Events, Advertising, Sponsorship
Being active in business-related events and sponsoring them is a great way of getting your brand out there. These events reflect your organization’s strengths, culture and energy.
With this information, you’re ready to create your business development strategy. Make sure you follow points five, six and seven to ensure your strategy is a success.
Marketing Strategy Development
Once you’ve drawn up a clear business development strategy, you can focus on marketing strategy development. Consider these factors during your marketing strategy development phase:
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Be clear on what your business is and what it offers
Bringing awareness to your brand, business and the products and services it offers is vital. Customers have to know about you to be able to buy from you. This is where you decide what kind of marketing you’re going to use to bring about that awareness. It could be in the form of social media campaigns, advertising, content marketing and competitions.
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Know the pulse of your potential customers and other businesses in that space
Understand how your market space works, how it changes and what people want from you. You also need to know what resources you have available and how to develop a strategy to use those resources effectively.
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Explain how your products or services are required by your target market
Merely letting people know that you exist isn’t enough. For a business to succeed, you need to explain how important your product is and why people should buy it. If your product has more features or is made better than your competitors, leverage that to get people to buy from you.
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Lay out a clear set of strategies you intend to implement
Your marketing strategy development should consider product, price, promotion, place and people. This is the most commonly used marketing strategy.
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Build a clear plan and assign metrics to measure your success
The final stage of strategy development is putting the plan together. Ensure that a system of measuring your success is also a part of your marketing development strategy process. This will help you make the changes you need to succeed and understand how to improve the strategy.
Conclusion
Creating and implementing effective business development strategies and designing a marketing strategy are vital to the success of any organization. The goal is to maximize revenue and continuously expand your market. Harappa’s Creating Solutions course takes students through detailed explanations, so that business development strategies become easy to understand and implement. So, don’t wait. Check it out now!