What’s the difference between the confident entrepreneurs who lead growing businesses and owners who can’t get out of survival mode?  It all comes down to this:  All successful businesses have a clear marketing strategy that makes everything they do more effective.

Unfortunately, many busy small business owners get so caught up in tactical daily marketing execution like building a website, sending email, tweeting, advertising, optimizing a landing page, blogging and so on, that they are not taking the time to work on the decisions that’ll improve the performance of their tactics.

Strategy is simply the decisions you need to make so your tactics work better.  Your marketing strategy is the foundation for creating awareness, generating interest, closing new sales and continuing customer engagement. Your marketing strategy guides your company culture, your products and services mix and your pricing.

There are many things to consider when crafting a successful strategy, but there are five key decisions that over the years I have seen help hundreds of small business owners grow their sales and create sanity in their businesses.

The 5 Keys of Marketing Strategy

1. Who is your narrowly defined target customer?
2. In which category does your business exist?
3. What is your unique benefit?
4. Who is your real competition?
5. How are you clearly different from your competitors?

Read full article http://smallbiztrends.com/2014/09/5-keys-great-small-business-marketing-strategy.html