5 Steps To Learn How To Do SWOT Analysis For Marketing Growth

An analysis is extremely essential for a marketer to spotlight the various aspects affecting business growth. The best way to depict where your business is standing among thousands of competitors is to conduct a SWOT analysis.

SWOT Analysis is a model invented in the late 1960s by a management Consultant named Albert Humphrey at the Stanford Research Institute. 500 Leading companies adopted the concept for long-term strategy build-up and planning at that time. Today, almost all the companies – Established or Start-ups prefer conducting a SWOT analysis. But, yet, they aren’t aware of the real details and its application versatility.

SWOT is an acronym that identifies Strength(S), Weakness(W), Opportunity(O), and Threat(T) of every growing organization whether it is big or small-scale. It is a comprehensive strategy that collects information about both internal and external factors which may affect your business. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors while opportunities and threats are external factors.

“Execute your future business plans by striking the right opportunity at the right time, keeping aside all the weaknesses and threats and making the best use of your strengths in an appropriate manner”

In this blog series, I have highlighted some interesting insights related to the topic for you all. This will help you to gain knowledge to make SWOT Analysis beneficial for your business.

If you wish to conduct a SWOT analysis for your company too, then please take a look – 

What is Marketing SWOT Analysis?

As told above, Marketing SWOT analysis is one of the most popular tools used by companies to assess overall strengths, weaknesses, upcoming opportunities, and potential threats of their marketing department. It gives you a deep insight into your competitive opportunities and potential threats.

On the basis of this analysis, you can easily define your business goals and plan your marketing strategies and policies. Also, SWOT marketing insights let you visualize all the factors that can make or break your success towards your business goals.

You should implement SWOT analysis in your company whenever-

• Starting any new business venture or launching a new product/service
• Witness a rapid increase in competition
• Your business is achieving its objectives but not within a time frame
• There is a need to examine the performance of existing strategies
• Any new strategic plan is formulated

Thus, you can see that it is an effective profitable analysis which will always give you long-term results whenever used.

5 Steps To Conduct SWOT Analysis For Marketing Growth

Understanding The SWOT Matrix For Effective Marketing Growth

So before we see how to apply the SWOT model to our marketing blueprint, let us understand the components of the marketing SWOT matrix. The matrix is made up of four quadrants which are obviously – Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats.

Let’s take a clear view of each quadrant:

1. Identify your marketing strengths(S)

The first quadrant is all about things that your business is already doing well. It could be both tangible (resources, manpower, or machinery) or intangible (brand’s attributes, unique sell propositions, or your audience).

• This comprises the internal positive marketing attributes of your company.
• Your unique products and services which develop your brand identity.
• Wide customer base, knowledge, technology, intellectual property, and patents.
• Your customer loyalty programs and efficient customer service.
• Pricing policy and a well-educated hardworking sales team.
• Your leadership and management skills
• Core competencies play a vital role in maintaining your market position.

To know your marketing strengths, ask yourself the following questions:

• What are the advantages at your disposal to make your goals into a reality?
• What tools are available to you for reaching your marketing goals?
• How to leverage your existing audience in reaching your goal?

2. Evaluate your marketing weaknesses(W)

The weakness quadrant is for critical self-awareness. There are always factors that tend to hold back your progress towards your goals. A brand’s weakness can be:

• Internal factors which bring limitations to your company.
• Resources your competitors have that you lack.
• It can also include financial discrepancies and a lack of technical expertise.
• Change in the business environment and government policies.
• Increasing balance of return inwards in your books of accounts.
• Poor communication among team members.
• Increase in absenteeism, labor turnover, strikes, and layoffs.
• Increase in customer complaints and negative reviews.

If your business is dealing with problems like stagnant sales or unsatisfied customers, it is an alarm to ask yourself the following questions:

• What are your competitors doing differently from your business?
• Are there any latest trends that you’re missing upon?
• Are you facing resource limitations?

These are some very few questions that will let you know where you’re lacking and what needs to be fixed.

3. Capture new marketing opportunities(O)

Opportunities are your tickets for something positive to happen. But you’ve to claim it for yourself before anyone else does.

So opportunities usually arise from situations that are created outside your business turf. Situations like climatic conditions, pandemic outbreaks, festive seasons all affect the buying behavior and can be used for marketing growth.

Here are a few ways to find opportunities for the marketing SWOT analysis:

• Opportunities comprise those uncontrollable factors which belong to the external environment.
• Seek the right opportunities at the right time, and execute them in the right manner.
• Track new market trends and changing customer preferences.
• Strategize your marketing policies for special day sales and the festive season
• Analyze new technologies and promotional channels.
• Look for new alliances and more profitable clients for your business.
• Focus on employee retention by leveraging new training opportunities.
• Promote cross-selling and up-selling of products and services.
• Target those areas where your customer-base hasn’t yet been established.

Here are some questions you must ask yourself if you’re on an opportunity hunt:

• Is there any underserved market or audience related to your niche?
• Is there anything that your competitors are missing?
• What new trends are emerging in my industry?

4. Resolve potential threats(T)

The last quadrant of the SWOT analysis for marketing growth is threats. Everything that is a risk to your marketing growth is a threat and needs to be resolved.

So what can fall under threat when we talk about marketing growth? Here’s the list:

• This includes those uncontrollable external dimensions which may pose a danger to the existence of your company.
• It can include an indispensable increase in prices by your suppliers.
• Increasing government regulations and liberalization policies.
• Adverse economic conditions that might lower down the sales revenues.
• Threats of new substitutes and new rivalries.
• Increase in the bargaining power of customers and suppliers.
• Any issues related to labor laws and trade unions.

You can ask yourself the following questions to find out some potential risks:

• You can ask yourself the following questions to find out some potential risks:
• Are there any emerging competitors?
• Is there a change in the customers’ attitude towards your product or brand?

Thus, by following a complete SWOT analysis you will be able to prepare the blueprint of your marketing strategy more precisely and efficiently.

Examples of SWOT Analysis for Marketing Growth

So now we know every element of the SWOT analysis for marketing growth. But for the sake of better understanding, let’s see some examples.

MakeWebBetter SWOT Analysis for COVID-19

As we all are aware, in the last few months marketers faced a big setback due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The global spread of the disease made the customers reluctant from purchasing new items and spending money on non-essentials. The outcome – annual profits started to reduce exponentially.

We at MakeWebBetter understood the problem and our team decided to take some quick actions on the situation. Thus, we planned to hold a team meeting and use the good old marketing SWOT model to paint a new strategy.

Let me share with you our marketing SWOT analysis blueprint:

Strengths Considerable customer base with global customer service. Several product options for the WooCommerce store owners. Complete support for eCommerce store owners.	Weaknesses Remote working to a large number of employees. Mis-management of resources. Adaption to the new normal.
Opportunities A major shift of retailers towards eCommerce and online stores. Increase in the demand for WooCommerce plugins.	Threats Increased competition. COVID-19 made people reluctant in spending money.

Being an eCommerce development agency we decided to channelize our marketing strategy. Our goal was to make people aware of how they can revive their business by going online. Also, we wanted business owners to use our products to create a fully-functional eCommerce website.

The bright side of all this was it gave rise to people’s interest in eCommerce – one can order desired goods at their homes without stepping out. We being in this industry for a very long time used the opportunity to reach our marketing and sales goals. After the SWOT analysis, we tried to outreach people and make them aware they can grow their businesses using our products.

We also optimized our marketing strategy in order to retain maximum customers this holiday season and drive sales in COVID-19.

With the help of a marketing SWOT analysis, we were able to visualize what resources we already have and what needs to be optimized. The SWOT analysis outputs showed us the path to create a winning strategy for the COVID-19 period.

Amazon SWOT Analysis

The first example was all about us that showed how we used the SWOT model for our own marketing growth. Now we’ve taken the SWOT analysis for a very popular brand – Amazon.

When it comes to hovering over the top SWOT analysis, Amazon is your answer. As you know, Amazon is the leading eCommerce giant as well as a leading cloud player. No doubt its growth inception has been outstanding. Let’s have an overview of its strength, weakness, opportunities, and threat.

The TOWS Matrix for External-Internal Analysis

Simply doing a SWOT analysis will not work for you to improve your business plan. You have to establish your strategies on the basis of the 4 quadrants of the TOWS Matrix. So, it is very important to establish a connection between them to take impactful actions. 

TOWS Matrix Model is a variant for SWOT Analysis, developed by Heinz Weihrich, an American International Business Professor.

TOWS Matrix Model aims to develop strategic options from External-Internal Analysis for maintaining the ideal business administration flow.

a) Strengths-Opportunities(SO Strategy)

Devise your marketing plans by making the best use of your strengths in order to capture the base of wide opportunities. This can be done by – 

• diversifying new market
• launching trending products
• reducing the cost of production.

So, list up those strengths which can be fully utilized in the given opportunity.

b) Weakness-Opportunities(WO Strategy)

This implies how you can make the use of new opportunities to overcome your internal weaknesses.

For example – By identifying new market trends, you can easily enter those markets & generate much productive work for your employees. 

Hence, this will help in reducing absenteeism and labor turnover.

c) Strengths-Threats(ST Strategy)

Utilize your strengths in such a way, that you are able to overcome the possibility of external threats. For instance, many companies avoid the threat of rapid competition by opening different units of their company in different geo-locations.

Thus, it helps them to establish their brand identity at different locations. 

d)  Weakness-Threats(WT Strategy)

One of the best strategies to mitigate external threats is overcoming your weaknesses to tackle the challenges of external threats. You have to remove your internal weaknesses so that outside competitors may not take advantage of this.

• Convert your underperforming units into high performing
• Develop unique selling policies
• Remove unethical policies
• Focus on hiring skilled employees
• Train your employees to do qualitative work rather than quantitative

5 Steps to Conduct Marketing SWOT Analysis :

1# Define your marketing goals

First of all, you are required to define your marketing goals. Decide which products and services require more marketing efforts. Inform your sales team about current sales targets. Make a complete audit of your prevailing promotional techniques and on the basis of that decide new objectives.

For example, there are many websites that help in doing online marketing through SWOT & automate your task by providing tools like SWOT analysis template, design Templates, etc.

2# Scan the internal and external environment

Now after deciding your marketing goals, the most prominent step is to scan the external and internal environment. Look upon those factors which can influence your marketing policies. Internal factors may include your company’s policies, workforce or coordination, and external factors relate to government policies, legal factors, and economic conditions.

Therefore, on the basis of these factors, you can easily evaluate the current scenario of your company and take relevant decisions.

3# Construct the SWOT matrix

Classify internal and external scanning of the environment. Explore which internal factors can be treated as strengths and weaknesses and which external factors can be treated as opportunities and threats.

After classification, make a complete proforma of a SWOT Matrix. It is a 4-quadrant matrix in which each quadrant is filled with different factors. With the help of this, you can easily identify both favorable as well as unfavorable factors affecting your business decisions.

4# Develop SWOT strategies

Your work is not finished only just by making the SWOT Matrix. Establish a combination of each quadrant to formulate specific strategies that may help you to draw up your marketing plan. Examine how can you make use of your strengths to overcome your weaknesses & threats.

These strategies will prevent you from any uncertain situations & accordingly prepare your contingency plans.

5# Evaluate your marketing policies

Evaluate your marketing policies from time to time in order to depict whether your strategies are working in the right direction or not. This will help you to know where you are lacking in your strategies.

Analyze the progress of your marketing results from the previous year, and the new innovations you have included in your strategic planning and keep on updating your SWOT analysis as per changing an environment.

Wrapping Up!

So, you got to know what this SWOT analysis is all about. The ultimate source of improving your marketing activities is to hold up your strengths and overcome weaknesses and external threats.

In order to reassure your business position in the market world, it is necessary to keep on updating yourself with new changes and opportunities. To summarize, SWOT analysis is one of the simplest and most flexible reports highlighting all goals, targets, and activities that should be informed to all your stakeholders as well as managers.

So, analyze your marketing policies today and conduct your SWOT analysis to discover much better approaches.

Also, share your findings with us in the comment box below!!