An in-depth and well-planned marketing strategy is critical to building a successful business. Whether it’s building brand awareness, increasing website traffic, or reaching your target demographic, a marketing strategy provides structure and a clear plan that caters to your business needs.

Let’s take a further look.

What is a marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy sets out your objectives and how you’ll meet them by understanding your consumers’ needs.

It helps you better understand who your customers are and what motivates them, as well as assisting in gaining more clarity on your company’s value proposition and what makes you unique.

This allows you to position your products or services in a way that communicates value to your consumers, ultimately helping you to outperform your competitors. 

Why should you have a marketing strategy?

Almost half (47%) of organisations don’t have a clearly defined digital marketing strategy. Without a clear and strategic goal, you cannot optimise the content you share with existing and potential clients. Having a strategy in place allows you to decipher what your consumers are looking for, meaning you can personalise your plan to suit your target audience.

It also allows you to see gaps within your market, helping you to expand your product range or services.

Your competitors will more than likely have a digital marketing strategy even if you don’t, which puts them one step ahead of you. 

Why is your brand strategy important?

A cohesive brand strategy supported by your marketing is essential for success. You need to identify the elements of your brand that make you unique and the important qualities that will resonate with your target market. This helps you build trust and loyalty with your clients and recognition among potential customers.

Being recognisable to your ideal client base is crucial for conversions, especially if you’re providing a service. Take an electrician, for example. They aren’t selling a specific product that consumers will see and immediately buy. Their ideal customers are people searching for electrical services in their area, which is why local SEO would be vital for them. 

Suppose the company consistently shares easily recognisable content on a platform like Facebook or a platform for their local area. In that case, they will become recognisable to their target audience. Although their customers may not convert from the initial view of their post, they may convert later down the line when they require your services. 

How to write a strategy

Having a bank of marketing tactics is crucial for creating a strategy. Here are some of the most essential elements you should consider:

• Target audience – A target audience is a group of consumers characterised by behaviour and specific demographics, such as location, age, gender, employment, income, etc. Your target audience is the pillar of your business and should influence any decision made for your strategy. Knowing who your target audience is is vital for deciding where to spend money on channels like Google ads, how to appeal to potential clients and how to expand your product range or services. For example, a women’s clothing boutique located in Nottingham may have a target audience of women between the ages of 20 and 40 who live in Nottingham and have an interest in women’s fashion. 

• Competitor analysis –Looking at your competitors’ performance is a great way to find the areas of your industry that perform well and identify gaps that your competitors may be missing. A competitor analysis allows you to see their best marketing efforts and the areas where they’ve fallen flat. This means you can adapt your strategy to ensure you are optimising for keywords that your ideal customers (or target audience) are searching for, as well as pushing products or services that your competitors may not offer.

• Type of competitors – There are three main types of competitors, and it is important to be able to differentiate between them. Direct competitors are businesses that offer similar products or services to yours and target the same audience, competing directly with you. Indirect competitors are businesses that offer different products or services but target the same or similar clients, potentially fulfilling similar needs as you. Analysing these competitors is a great way to find gaps where you can operate. Brand competitors are similar to direct competitors; however, they have established a strong brand identity, which sets them apart through reputation.

• Choosing the right marketing channels–Before choosing the right marketing channels for your business, you need to ask yourself a few questions. Who is your target audience? Are you a B2B or B2C business? What are your goals? 

• Once you have answered these questions, you can decipher the right marketing channels for you. Here are a couple of examples: 
  
  Email marketing – Do you want to retarget existing customers? This is a great option for eCommerce businesses that want to promote offers and discounts to their existing customers. 
  
  Social media (specifically LinkedIn) – Are you a B2B company looking to work with new businesses? LinkedIn is a platform designed for businesses to showcase their services and products as well as express brand personality and allow you to learn more about the person behind the brand.
  
  SEO and PPC – Are you trying to increase traffic to your website? Combining paid advertising and SEO is a great way to guide more people to your site, creating more opportunities for conversions.

• Setting measurable goals and aligning them with business objectives – When creating your strategy, you should always ensure you have clear goals that make sense for you and your business. Ensure your targets are SMART:
  
  – Are your goals specific enough?
  – Is the process measurable?
  – Are your goals achievable for your business?
  – Are you being realistic about what you want to achieve?
  – Have you identified a timeframe?

Crafting a strategy that is right for you

Once you have defined the foundation of your marketing strategy, you need to ensure that you allow enough time to see results; most marketing practices don’t provide instant results. You have to be consistent in your marketing efforts, so ensuring that your goals are realistic is incredibly important. For example, don’t plan to post a piece of content across social media on a daily basis if you don’t have the time to think of seven different pieces of content that will be beneficial to your reader. 

Key tip: Don’t share content for ‘sharing sake’. It is much more effective to share quality content that answers your audience’s questions than to post lots of completely irrelevant content just to stay consistent. Consistency is key in most cases; however, the quality of the content being shared matters the most. Your content should be a key example of quality over quantity to show your consumers that you are listening to their queries and have their best interests at heart. 

Whether you are working with a marketing agency or trying to follow your strategy yourself, it is important to ensure you understand each element of your plan and why it is being implemented. Whether you are a small business trying to grow your online presence or a well-established company trying to expand your client base, understanding each step of your process is vital.

Some key resources to help you get started

• The B2B SEO Playbook: Your Guide to Online Success, written by our CEO, Matt Janaway, is available in hard copy or audiobook form.
• One Page Marketing Plan written by our Creative Director, Tom Haslam, to provide an easy guide on putting your strategy together. 
• Short #45: One-page Marketing Plan