How To Use SWOT Analysis In Marketing?

Been asked to conduct a SWOT analysis on your marketing and thinking, er… what? 

Yeah, sadly it’s less fly-swatting and more analysis! 

The acronym of SWOT stands for:

• Strengths 
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats

Conducting an analysis like this on various areas of your business and activities can be really beneficial. Here, we want to explain how you can apply it to the likes of digital marketing strategies to help inform future marketing activity.

S – Strengths In Marketing

Quite simply, look for your strengths… what’s going well for you right now within your marketing?

Is your website traffic looking good? Are your PPC conversions helping provide a good ROI?

List out all the areas that are going well, that show your work as strong. Think about why that might be, and what learnings you might be able to apply to the following analysis and future marketing activities.

W – Weaknesses in Marketing

As we’ve done for strengths, now do for the things not going so well.

This might be things like your average position within the SERPs for your service keywords, the fact your social media advertising is delivering impressions but not conversions…

Why do you think these things aren’t working? Is there any clear path to improve them, or do you need to delve a bit deeper? Suddenly you’ve got a fantastic to-do list, and with the likes of an Eisenhower Matrix, you’ll be able to prioritse your focuses.

O – Opportunities in Marketing

Identifying your opportunities in digital marketing can be an absolute game-changer for your performance.

To find your opportunities you could conduct keyword research, GAP analysis, and any review that can then showcase areas that haven’t been filled by others yet.

For example, you might do a featured snippet review and find a search term that you could try to feature for on Google which would then ultimately help your website sessions, etc.

There are always opportunities for businesses in digital marketing, you just have to go looking for them, instead of waiting for them to come to you!

T – Threats in Marketing

Threats for your business’s digital marketing are areas where your competitors could sneak up on you.

For example, with paid advertising, you might have the threat of a competitor bidding on the same keyword as you but with a higher budget. You could take into account the context you have, such as budget sizes or limitations, and try and turn this into an opportunity.

Identifying your business’s threats will help you to push forward ideas on how to create opportunities for your business’s marketing and to reach your goals.

It’s all pretty simple, really, but until you start thinking this way about things, you’ll always focus on the weaknesses and never consider the opportunities.

Go ahead and consider your current digital marketing efforts within the SWOT analysis, and see if you can instantly come up with some opportunities off the back of your weaknesses and threats.

If you don’t make the time and space to think these ways, then your competitors will always sneak up on you!