Any marketing strategy has to work around the audience. This is especially relevant when working in the field of international education and when marketing products to schools, universities, agents and service providers. Therefore, before diving in straight to the deep end of all the strategies available one must always follow these steps.

1. Determine your brand positioning.

Your first step in any effective strategy is to fully understand your brand positioning. This means that you must identify your target market, as well as come up with a full picture of how you want your brand to be perceived. To put it simply you need to identify the Who, When, Why and How of your brand identity. Once your team draws up a brand positioning statement that prospective customers can believe in, you are ready for the next step.

2. Identify your target audience.

Whether you are a school, agency or a service provider, you must find out who is really looking for your products or services - in other words, your target audience. This will help you create buyer personas and how these buyers make their purchasing decisions.

3. Run a competitive analysis.

Researching the market is always a great tool for any business, be on the lookout of what other businesses are marketing to your target audiences. Focus on the products being offered, sales tactics and results, as well as their marketing content and social media presence. Getting a general overview of these items can help you recognize your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — otherwise known as SWOT analysis.

4. Explore marketing channels to use.

While you are running your competitive analysis, you will notice the different types of marketing channels your competitors are using successfully, as well the channels out there that they haven’t taken advantage of yet. With this knowledge in mind you’ll be able to expand and diversify your marketing portfolio to reach the business you need to.

In the next weeks we will be focusing more on the channels you can use for your business to business marketing channels to connect to your audience, so stay tuned for more. Check back in next week for more How to Tips and Tricks. Our ‘How to Tuesday’ is brought to us thanks to a collaboration between Schools & Agents and our sister company BaiLogik.