By Marc Alexander

Traditionally, marketing was about being the biggest, the best, and wowing everyone in the public. Recently though, public relations and marketing specialists have moved away from bombastic marketing approaches, and have instead focused on strategic marketing. Strategic marketing is not about going off with a loud bang, but rather this involves learning about your target market and using many novel solutions and ideas to get your point across.

With the media being so fragmented nowadays, there are many ways to run a strategic marketing campaign. One has the option of going through traditional media, like newspapers, magazines and other publications. Most can go for more ubiquitous types of media like television spots and billboards. A rising trend in strategic marketing is the use of the Internet, which is considered to be a big game changer. New media and social media have done so much in changing how marketing professionals reach out to their target audience. It’s really all about business marketing strategy coupled with good product marketing strategy.

When running a strategic marketing campaign, there are a few key points to remember.

Know your market. Before planning out a strategic marketing campaign, it pays to know your target audience. You will have to do some research to determine what the market wants and needs. You need to appeal to certain demographics, to be able to ensure that your product would have a sustainable user base. Most big companies rely on survey firms to get a pulse of what the public wants. But if you want bleeding edge information, you should learn how to get this information off of social mediums like forums, review sites, Twitter and social networks like Facebook. These are rich with comments, reviews and discussions that can help you determine the kind of marketing campaign you need to run to promote your product.

Plan your campaign. Marketing planning is all about identifying the type of people who would gravitate towards your product. Traditionally, marketing managers organize focus group discussions in which potential customers participate in talking about the potential strengths and weaknesses of a product or service. With these insights, you would be able to see certain trends that emerge along demographic lines or even across the board. This would help you adjust and readjust your marketing pitch such that it will genuinely appeal to your target market.

Modern social media tools let businesses and marketers participate in the discussions through blogs, microblogging services, and even social networks. These days, focus group discussions can be held virtually, and you can get a hold of what the market wants.

Play to your crowd. This is where strategic branding comes in. You must be able to come up with a slogan, image, or catchphrase that your target demographic will easily remember and recognize. Brand recognition is an important aspect of marketing. When a customer is at the grocery store, which brand of soap, toothpaste, cereal or soda do they buy? Either they have pre-formed preferences already, or they’re influenced by subconscious stimulus from the media.

Know your limits. It’s not always about global marketing. Being a smart marketing professional is all about knowing your goals and doing what it takes to achieve those goals. Aiming for something that is not realistic at a particular moment may make you spread your resources and efforts too thinly. This is the importance of market research and targeting certain demographics—you can focus on targeting your campaign at the people who will most likely be your customers.

As a budding investor, I recently learned how important it is to read up on buying gold right now.  And if you have owned it for a while, now is the time to also learn strategies for selling gold.