The Seven Steps to Marketing Excellence are:

1. Strategy
2. Product
3. Markets
4. Brand
5. Communications
6. Lead Generation
7. Sales Qualified Leads

Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy requires a coordinated approach to align marketing activity to the overall business strategy of the company. However, per Marketo, only 56% of small businesses have a marketing strategy.  Moreover, a marketing strategy that is not coordinated with the overall business strategy means the marketing organization or sales organization may be going off in a totally wrong direction or certainly in different directions.

Therefore, the first action is to develop marketing strategy with measurable deliverables against the business goals and objectives. The second is to understand what you are selling and what value you want to deliver to the marketplace. For example: Selling cars has little to do with the mechanical parts of the car. Cars are sold to deliver an experience to the driver. Drivers are enticed by different desired experiences such as style, power, speed, economy, environmental awareness, etc. Regardless of your product or service, you must know what value or values your buyers appreciate in deciding to make a purchase from you.  The third important consideration is to know your customers. Once you decide upon the type of product that you're selling, know the businesses or people you want to sell to, and know the type of relationship desired between you and your customers. Finally, develop a marketing plan that addresses when your product will be available, the market communications media and mechanisms, organizational structure and personnel requirements, budgets and the types of collateral required to deliver your messages and inform the market of your products.

The Marketo research also shows that businesses with documented marketing plans were nearly twice as likely to stay on strategy and 77% were more likely to be extremely satisfied with their marketing teams. Conversely, only 12.5% of companies without marketing plans were satisfied with their marketing teams.