How to create a marketing strategy, step by step

Once the wheels are in motion and everything is set for your business to start operating, one step you need to spend some focusing on is a marketing strategy. You’ll want to be able to get your business out there in front of potential customers and let them know who you are and ultimately driving sales.

Creating a marketing strategy doesn’t need to be complex, it just takes a little bit of time, some research, understanding who your target market is and how you’re going to reach them. Our guide breaks down the key things you need to look at when creating your marketing strategy.

Why marketing matters

There’s a good chance you’ve already had to create a business plan, outlining all the nitty gritty of your business, its financials, plans etc. A strategy plan v a marketing plan are very different though when looking at the areas that they each focus on.

Your marketing strategy is specifically focused on homing in on the ways your are going to help get your business out there in the marketplace and generate results.

A marketing strategy works with the other elements of your business by creating clear goals to help it stay on track. Combined with research and insights into your customers you can understand their buying habits, behaviours and invest in the right types of marketing to help get your business noticed.

Combining these elements together puts your business in a better position to budget and have by having variables in place you can easily measure the success of your marketing efforts (campaigns, adverts etc).

Resources to help create your marketing strategy

Like any good strategy, you need the right information to help create and establish your plan. These are some of the things you need to consider sourcing when creating a marketing strategy:

• Your financial position. Depending on where you are at with your business, having some of the details of where your business is sitting helps to understand how much you will need to invest in your marketing efforts
• Include an overview of the types of products and services your business is currently offering and anything new that you plan to look at launching in the future
• Jot down all the things you know about who you think your target audience is. Things like their age, interest, locations, etc will all help to create a picture of the type of buyers your business needs to be seeking
• If you have any customer feedback, spend some time going over it. This is information coming straight from the horses mouth and can provide some valuable insights into your business. It can uncover the things that your business is doing well, what needs improvement and what your customers may want to see more of.

Types of marketing

The world of marketing can be a bit bamboozling with so many different channels and ways available to help connect to your audience. The good thing is, you don’t need to be an expert on all of them and you don’t use to use every platform and form of marketing to help your business grow.

It’s about aligning what is going to suit your business best. For example you may be a hairdresser, so using platforms like TikTok and Instagram are going to be great to share before and after shots and videos of clients, using the visual strengths of these platforms.

However, if you are a professional like an accountant or IT consultant you may want to focus on creating things like newsletters, blogs and informative content that helps to educate your client base.

It doesn’t hurt to look at what types of activities your competitors are doing with their marketing to get some ideas. Don’t be afraid to try new things, and if something doesn’t work try a new marketing style or channel.

Understand who your target audience is

There are a lot of people in the marketplace, but as a business your goal is to fish out the ones that are going to require your business’ products and services. You need to really narrow down, get specific and this can take some time and research.

There’s no point spending your hard-earned money on marketing to individuals who are not interested in your business. You may want to look at creating things like buyer personas that create a profile of who you target customer is as a reference.

Establish marketing goals for your business

One of the main aims of a marketing strategy is to grow your business and reach those all important goals. Having a think about your business’ current situation and where you would like to see it in the future, helps to craft some goals to help your business achieve and measure success along the way.

Setting your goals and objectives is an exciting process. It’s putting actions in place to help your business get to the next level and gives your marketing strategy a sense of purpose.

Make your goals SMART

Once you have an idea of the type of goals that you want to set for your business, the next step is to make them SMART.

• Specific- outline your goals clearly and as specifically as possible
• Measurable- to help track your goals set some KPI’s so you can measure and track the success
• Achievable- be realistic, there is no point setting a goal that you can’t achieve!
• Relevant- this is where you can use your market research to get to your target audience
• Time-bound- try and attach a timeline and frame that you want to achieve your goals in

Measure your success

With any strategy, you will need to check in and make sure you’re on the right path to achieving your marketing goals. There is no point investing money into campaigns that are costing your business money without generating any income.

When setting up different ads and campaigns, there is usually an analytics tools which allows you to review how your adverts are performing. It will provide details on things like how much a sale is really costing you, how many visitors your websites are receiving, and how much you’re paying cost per click.

Reviewing these stats and facts on a regular basis can help to discover trends and explore what areas of marketing are working to help grow your business best.

Marketing, accounting, customer service are just some of the key elements that go into helping run your business. To help keep it running for the long haul make sure you have the right business insurances in place to protect all your efforts.

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