Burning millions of dollars in fancy marketing strategy with no returns is the worst nightmare of a digital marketer!! Whether you’re running A/B test ads or trying to measure the ROI of a PPC campaign, some common mistakes are enough to wreck your efforts.
Fortunately, there is a simple but fundamental strategical framework called SWOT. The strategy may seem like a theory from the marketing management classes of your grads time. However, when everything in your running strategy goes wrong, the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis comes in handy.
From personal experience, I found this strategy can be a savior when you propose a quotation to or approach the investors. Otherwise, it can help you in taking better decisions for locking any final strategy!
SWOT Analysis - A Potential weapon in your Strategic game
Let’s get ready for some details. SWOT is a framework that can identify both the pros and cons of the business. But how?
In this 2x2 grid, you will get a clearer view of both internal and external factors in a jiffy. The four aspects of the SWOT analysis primarily focus on both positive and negative attributes associated with your marketing journey.
If you ask me to explain what are the internal factors and external factors associated with the business, let me break them into simplified versions.
The internal factors are those which you can control to manage the situation. For example, the productivity of the team or coordination in between hierarchy. The strength and weaknesses of the business are the internal factors for your business. While external factors are the factors that you cannot control; for example- the surge of any new technology or socio-political issues.
Your goal should not only be for analyzing the metrics of your marketing strategies. This matrix can assess the performance of an ad which can deliver a better view of the marketing improvements.
Why would you do a SWOT Analysis?
Now, you don’t have to rely on the intuitions of your marketing specialists or less-expert consultants blindly. Instead of taking action on the intuitions, a SWOT analysis will give you a clear insight into the internal and external factors of your potential marketing strategy.
You get a reality check
Doing business is not easy, especially when you find that something is going wrong. With SWOT analysis, you can develop a proper plan to stop unproductive strategies. It gives you a space to aspire to better objectives and bigger dreams. You’ll create a roadmap for the present resources.
Find out the areas of improvement
SWOT allows you to identify the scope for future development and strategic management. You can find out both internal and external loopholes in the current circumstances.
Set long-term goals
You’ll get a tangible goal for fulfilling the goals. Identification of opportunities and threats will help to grow in the future. If you want to set a budget for your business or plan a mid-to-long-term strategy, SWOT analysis is a suitable tool for setting a long-term goal.
Competitor Analysis
Who doesn’t want to strengthen their position in the market? Without competitive analysis, you’re not being able to plan your business according to the market condition, and I don’t think that anybody would take any advice on how poor competitive analysis affect the long-term goals of your business.
Spot the new market trends
Despite running behind unrealistic expectations and outdated traditional trends, SWOT helps you in spotting new market trends. Hence, you’ll have to maintain all your inventory and avoid irrelevant trends.
Mitigate Potential Risks
It assists you in controlling risks and making the right decisions for uncovering the opportunities for the business. By following the matrix, you’ll be more aware of your particular goals and objectives for your businesses. Henceforth, detection of weaknesses and threats will be easily detected.
Record-keeping is the key
While running a marketing campaign, it's better to understand the actual scenario of the market and what options are available in your hand. Therefore, with SWOT analysis, you would get the entire situation in the form of documents. According to AirTable, 40% of marketers have no documented marketing strategy at all, and most of the time, it backfires.
A Guide to Conduct SWOT
Now there’s no place to make erratic decisions and sudden leaps of faith; all marketers nowadays maintain a streamlined process to launch any strategy. Big names like Coca-Cola and Levis have faced failure in the past. Hence, whenever you want to execute any strategy, try to break it into mini-steps which would ease the entire process. Here, we’ve dissected the process of SWOT analysis into some steps. These steps clear all doubts in your mind.
Select your goal
Execution is not possible without a proper goal, especially when it comes to the question of marketing strategies. If you don’t select the goals for any marketing campaign, you’ll end up with empty hands.
With unclear goals, any strategy remains unfulfilled, with tons of basic information and no ideas for better outputs. The faster you clear your goals for your business, the better your company will perform. In the tiniest decision-making, you need to focus on some factors as follows;
Feasibility of the upcoming projects or product launch
A practical and attainable roadmap to expand your businesses
Current situation of the company to mitigate the risks and benefits
There might be a situation when you can’t think of a goal. Then, you can use many decision-making models. You’ve come across one of the most handy frameworks created by Semrush to decide what your goal is!
The formula is based on the fill-in-the-blanks. Yes! It may sound like a 5th-grade worksheet, but it really works. The framework looks like
I need to ____________. By doing the followings, I might get what I need;
1._____
2._____
3.______
You can also use the SMART framework.
Analyze your STRENGTH
As they say, "Before marching to battle, seek your inner might, for knowing your strengths is the key to victory's sight." Similarly, we should be aware of our strengths before selecting any strategy as final.
So, marketers keep an eye on the elements that work well. Now, the question is how to get the data on our strengths. We've jotted down some of the ways.
Get the data for strengths.
Start with asking some questions first;
You can also get to know about your strengths of yours by knowing the net promoter score to get a view of what customers think about your products.
Take help from business analytics tools, for example, PowerBI and Google Data Studio.
Can perform polls among employees and customers.
Look out for your WEAKNESS
Knowing your weaknesses is as important as getting information about your strength. When you know the weaknesses, you get a clear picture of making improvements.
Get an insight into the weaknesses
Be honest with yourself and write down all your weaknesses. Listing weaknesses may be a critical thing to do, but it gets you the ultimate reality check for your company.
Point out the factors of failed projects or those which did not give you the expected outcomes.
Perform a survey among the employees to know what are areas for your improvement.
Connect to your customers through a poll or quiz to know what they did not like about your brand.
Ask some questions
Identify the OPPORTUNITY
Begin your strategic analysis with the identification of your opportunities. The opportunities are the external factors that you can optimize when you want to execute a marketing strategy.
How to get the data on opportunities
Opportunities can be found with an open mind and backed by data. You need to assess what are the areas which will drive the best results in real life.
Competitive analysis data
Trends in the Industry
Blogs and videos on the internet
Growing market trends
Here are the points you need to remember when selecting the advantages f the opportunities.
Emerging trends in the market
Strength for the valuable and potential partners
Finding the areas with less competition
Tapping into the market where you can create demand
Identification of the workflow model for evolving the entire process
Point out the possible THREAT
Threats in the market can evolve with the changing time. While you may not control the threats in the market but definitely avoid them. So, pay close attention and put them down on the paper.
A very relevant example of poor-threat assessment is those devastated websites which are affected when Google rolled out its Panda update to target spammy and weak content.
Find the data
Here are some of the factors which you need to track, such as
Economic trends
Technological trends
Intuitive analysis
Audience preferences
Changing business environment
These changes continuously with the trends and assess the threats for your company’s future.
Make a narrow list
You should have a decent number of factors in each of your SWOT categories. But don’t overwhelm yourself. Stick to the most significant elements in the matrix and make the changes as per the analysis.
Follow the action priority matrix and decide;
What to Do with This Analysis
Now you’ll get all the information about the SWOT analysis. So, spend some time fr analyzing the opportunities and threats. You can analyze how to incorporate the data into practical scenarios.
Examine how each aspect interacts with the others. You want to be certain that you are maximizing your strengths and chances while minimizing your weaknesses and dangers.’
You can develop a strategy based on the information get from the SWOT analysis. After that, you can create an action plan by making a list of items for every department. Additionally, a contingency plan should be created.
You can use our SWOT analysis template to analyze and create your own marketing plan.
What are the Drawbacks?
Instead of many positive sides, SWOT analysis has some drawbacks.
1. You need to be honest to get relevant results.
2. You may find it complicated to analyze strengths and weakness
For example, running TikTok ads may require a high budget but can generate good numbers of leads. So, this can be both of opportunity and a weakness at the same time.
3. It is a time-consuming process
4. It can generate too many ideas
5. You may get confused with the enormous data
Visualize SWOT with Examples
Well, now time for some practical examples. We will explore a SWOT analysis for Starbucks.
This was an example of a renowned brand. You might think about whether this will be applicable to your small business or your marketing strategies like ad campaigns. Here’s an example of a SWOT analysis for a Facebook ad campaign.
Make your SWOT analysis Actionable
After conducting a SWOT analysis, the question will be, what next?
It is just as crucial — if not more — to put the conclusions of the investigation into action.
Use the subsequent actions to put your findings into action.
Marketers, get ready for SWOT …
After you've completed your marketing SWOT analysis, it's time to put that knowledge to use. It delivers the knowledge you need to create more effective marketing campaigns.
How can you strengthen your present abilities? What efforts can you take to mitigate the effect of your flaws? Finally, how can you prepare for the dangers that await you?
So, show your brighter insights with SWOT.
FAQ
What is SWOT analysis?
A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning framework that evaluates a company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It aids in the identification of internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external (opportunities and threats) aspects to influence decision-making and strategy formulation.
How does SWOT analysis work?
SWOT analysis is a strategic framework for assessing a company's or organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It entails recognizing internal (strengths and weaknesses) variables that contribute to the organization's current status as well as external (opportunities and threats) aspects that may affect its future. Internal resources, capabilities, and constraints are used to define strengths and weaknesses, while external market, competition, and industry trends are used to identify opportunities and threats. Businesses may capitalize on their strengths, correct their shortcomings, grasp opportunities, and manage dangers by recognizing these aspects. SWOT analysis is an extremely useful technique for strategic planning, decision-making, and finding areas for development.
What are the 3 C's in SWOT analysis?
This strategy has remained a prevalent and widespread practice in the business world for a significant period of time, and it continues to be widely utilized in online marketing even today.
This strategy requires you to concentrate your study on the three C's, or strategic triangle: customers, competitors, and corporation.
You will be able to identify the critical success factor (KSF) and develop a feasible marketing plan by analyzing these three aspects. Because of its simplicity, this strategy has spawned several modifications.
What are the two main categories of a SWOT analysis?
A SWOT analysis is divided into two parts: internal variables and external elements.
Internal factors include an organization's strengths and limitations.
Internal assets that create a competitive advantage, such as unique talents, significant resources, or competent individuals, are examples of strengths.
Weaknesses are internal constraints or areas that need to be improved, such as operational inefficiencies or insufficient resources.
External factors are concerned with opportunities and threats.
External variables, such as developing markets or technology breakthroughs, might create opportunities for the organization. External variables that might have a detrimental influence on the organization, such as fierce competition or changing customer preferences, are examples of threats.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of SWOT analysis?
Advantages
It helps in prioritizing areas for improvement.
Gives a brief and straightforward assessment of a company's present position.
Supports in the identification of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
Companies of different sizes and sectors can utilize it.
Disadvantages
It can be time-consuming and expensive.
This might result in a restricted, inward concentration.
External elements that might have a significant influence on a corporation may be overlooked.
This can result in groupthink and a lack of originality.