To find customers for your products and services, you need your marketing strategy to produce results. Without a strategy in place, your marketing will struggle to make an impact through inefficient processes that bring no value to your business. So, become an innovator and try using a marketing strategy template that can provide a framework for producing fantastic marketing campaigns. With these 10 steps, you can produce a marketing strategy to win new audiences, empower your conversion and produce compelling CTAs.
1. Define Your Goals
Prior to developing the nuts and bolts of your marketing strategy, meet with key stakeholders from the relevant departments and figure out what you want your marketing to achieve. Start with broader long-term goals for your business. Once you’ve established these, divide each goal into short-term objectives that will build towards achieving your broader goals. For example, if your goal is effecting a successful social media marketing strategy, a relevant objective might be getting 500 shares in a month for a social media post.
2. See Where Your Business Sits in the Marketplace
You won’t be able to create an effective marketing strategy if you don’t understand your position in the marketplace. This is your “niche”, which encompasses the most valuable USPs your business offers and the reasons why customers will choose you over the competition. A good marketing strategy template for this is the SWOT analysis method:
- Strengths: Your business’ USPs attract customers and give your brand an edge over the competition.
- Weaknesses: The areas of your business that would most benefit from improvements.
- Opportunities: Areas in your marketplace where growth would prove most rewarding for your business.
- Threats: Factors that could undermine your success, such as your competitor’s strategies or any disruption that could come to your industry and the wider economy.
Use this framework to generate a clear and unbiased profile of your business’ health and find issues that merit further consideration. You can further enhance this process by creating profiles for audiences and customers for your marketing strategy.
3. Create a Message Map
Produce a succinct mission statement that manifests your brand values. Next, write more focused statements that apply to different areas of your industry and client base. Then use these materials throughout your digital marketing strategy (but be sure your activities are living up to the values you’re describing).
4. Write a Mission Statement
Modern audiences demand that the companies they patronize have an ethical aspect and can align with their personal values. Respond to this need proactively by developing a mission statement for your marketing strategy. Offer customers transparency about your business, but, again, make sure you can back up your words with actions.
5. Decide on Your Tactics
“Tactics” in this instance, refer to the methods that you will employ to execute your marketing strategy. Use the insights based on the outcomes from your SWOT analysis to see which tools will be the most effective. For example, if you’re trying to win over a younger audience, consider using an influencer marketing strategy to boost brand engagement. However, if your business revolves around marketing products, you’ll want to choose marketing materials with a visual emphasis to appeal to consumer audiences. Or, if you’re trying to sell a subscription service online, try using a SaaS marketing strategy for better results. For an online web marketing strategy that helps rank your website higher on search engine pages, you may consider searching for jacksonville search engine optimization and getting a professional marketing company to do the work for you.
6. Plan a Schedule
You need a schedule to keep your marketing strategy on track. Create milestones to reach your goals and hit your objectives in a timely manner. However, remember to give yourself more time than necessary to deal with any challenges that may emerge after launching your marketing campaign.
7. Budget Your Marketing Strategy
It’s no good creating a fantastic marketing strategy if it’s too expensive to be sustainable. Assess the tools that you’re considering to see if they provide value. Could an email marketing strategy be more effective than paid SEO, for example? Also, allow extra money for any unforeseen challenges or emergencies.
8. Leverage Your Team
With your marketing strategy drawn up, you need your marketing team to execute it. If you don’t have the right staff for the job, you may need to outsource some specialized work. Take time to consider which strategy offers the best value.
9. Follow the Progress of Your Marketing Strategy
After you’ve started executing your marketing strategy, don’t get complacent. Employ analytics to monitor the impact of your marketing strategy to see which tools are proving most successful. This feedback will be valuable in refining your marketing processes and improving future strategies.
10. Ensure Your Processes Remain Current
The field of marketing often shifts, and new technologies can overhaul traditional processes very quickly. Make an annual review of your marketing strategy so you can take advantage of opportunities to implement changes in your content marketing strategy. Be mindful of your competitors’ activities and be aware of the long-term viability of your tactics.
Final Thoughts
Look after your marketing strategy, and your marketing strategy will look after you. Use this marketing strategy template to refine your processes, and accomplish your goals in the most efficient manner possible. Do you have any tricks or tips for making a great marketing strategy example? Share them with us in the comments section.
After I spent nearly a decade of experience inside of a marketing agency, asking the question “why should a company hire a marketing strategy consultant versus a marketing agency” is a smart question.