“Begin with the end in mind.”  Stephen Covey.

What is your strategy to get you to the end?  What is your offer and what differentiates it from competitive products or services?

Differentiation is an experience.  A brand is an experience.  An experience can be visual.  Lacquered red sole high heel shoes create quite an experience to be able to command a $5,000 price tag.  An experience can be an intimate setting to drink rich coffee, dream, think and let the creative muse come in.  An experience can be a two-inch cut of a delicious dry aged ribeye served topped with butter sizzling on a cast iron skillet.  An experience is what you create to make your product/service unique.  It can be tangible or intangible.  It can be visual—a BMW or imagined—Marlboro Country.

Marlboro brand cigarettes were initially advertised for the women’s market, but the brand was the 31^st best-selling in the country.  Philip Morris repositioned the brand in 1950 and increased the advertising budget.  The new brand depicted real working cowboys in beautiful mountainous terrains with stirring music from the movie The Magnificent Seven— “Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country.”  It was a macho image of freedom and independence that targeted males.  A year later Marlboro was still in the 31^st best-selling in the country.  But that didn’t deter Joseph Cullman IV.  It was his commitment that took the 31^st best-selling in the country to 1^st best-selling in the country and the world. Joseph Cullman was appointed a vice president at Philip Morris in 1954; executive vice president in 1955; president and CEO in 1957; and chairman of the board and CEO in 1967, a position he held until 1978.  He gave the Marlboro advertising a chance to succeed. He stayed committed. The campaign ran from early 1950’s until 1990.  Commitment is more important than creative.  If you are not committed, don’t join the fray.

Target Audience

The other element that makes up your marketing strategy is who is your target audience.  What are their personas? What do they like?  What is their education? Are they risk takers?  Are they outdoors people or are they more comfortable reading a book?

Strategy Questions

Questions you need to answer to determine your strategy:

• What is the purpose of your marketing? What do you want to happen?

• What is your best competitive advantage? It may be an image or imagined.

• Who is your target market. Narrow your target market to be able to focus.

• What do you stand for? What is your positioning? For Marlboro it was independence, out-door lifestyle, free spirited, rugged, and masculine.

That’s it.

         Who are you trying to reach and what makes you different?