Have you ever heard the term “fastest-growing company”? Probably you have. Two common factors behind these companies are hard work and strong marketing strategy. Both are easier said than done.
A strong marketing strategy takes care of every aspect of marketing, from understanding the target audience to crafting a campaign and monitoring it. There is a lot to consider, and this guide will educate you on exactly how you can make one and what the best strategies are.
A marketing strategy is an overall plan that aims to convince customers to buy from you. Generally, it contains the company’s values, messages and other high-level elements.
This essentially communicates to consumers how the company operates, what it stands for, and why it deserves business.
Marketing strategy helps you define the general direction of your company. Generally, it includes:
Marketing strategy is essential for success of every business. From startups to businesses of all scales and global brands, it can help and support your brand to:
It is not surprising that the majority of businesses spend approximately 5 to 15% of their overall budget on marketing. Without a well-planned marketing strategy, you won’t be able to attract new customers, deliver your brand message, and scale in the market.
To create a solid marketing strategy, you need to follow these steps:
Before planning anything, your first step should be to undergo rigorous research. Researching will let you understand the behaviors and propels you to move forward by letting you know the areas to work on.
Gathering maximum data will help you in making informed and data-driven decisions. Furthermore, it will help you understand your target market, existing gaps and future opportunities.
The moment you are done with researching will be the one where you can make the right marketing decisions.
In this step, you would set your marketing goals. The goals could be increasing brand awareness, driving more sales, enhancing the customer base or reaching a new audience.
Your marketing goals, branding guidelines and business goals must align with each other. They should be easy to understand and provide a clear roadmap and directions.
You should have SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, which specifically means:
To make better decisions, you must be aware of your target audience. You should answer questions like:
In addition to this, you must also be aware of their age, job titles, location, interests, and goals. All this information will help you build a better buyer persona and be better positioned to make informed decisions.
The next step is to research your competitors. Start assessing your top competitors by reviewing their websites, social media pages, and other marketing strategies.
Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis and determine what marketing tactics would best serve you and where the gap lies.
Develop a unique, value-driven message for your target audience that is compelling enough to resonate with them.
A great message has the following characteristics in it:
Generating a brand message supporting your overall business and marketing goals is important.
In this stage, choose the best marketing channel based on audience demographics and your goals. Generally, start with a media channel that you are already using. Then, move toward other media channels. Your marketing strategy should combine content marketing, influencer and email marketing.
Now comes the step of creating a campaign, tracking the results and adjusting accordingly. This stage requires continuous monitoring and adjustment.
Review your goals and strategies and bring desired changes.
There are many marketing strategies. The best one depends on your budget, goals, and expertise. Strategies having the highest ROI include:
Commonly known as SEO, it is one of the best strategies for building brand authority and trustworthiness. SEO lets your website rank organically higher in search results for specific keywords, driving more traffic, enhancing your sales, and boosting your credibility.
SEO depends on more than 200 metrics, which, if taken care of, will rank your website. SEO is an important business strategy, from keyword research to link building, because it lets you rank organically and receives about 75% of search engine traffic.
Do the SEO right, and it will drive traffic to your website. You can create a bulletproof SEO strategy by:
Content marketing involves creating content that resonates with your brand. It helps attract people to your brand and meet your marketing and business goals. Major content marketing types include blog posts, videos and podcasts, webinars and eBooks.
The primary goal of content marketing should be to provide value to your customers, but it should also arouse curiosity, thus making your audience follow and buy from you. It helps establish your authority in the market.
Most of your content would be freely available online, while you would need contact information like email addresses to convert prospects into leads.
PPC ads are the most common paid medium for marketing your product. You pay for each click on your ad regardless of whether it converts.
There are two common types of ads available: search ads (visible on SERP pages) and display ads (visible on website pages). To place either ad, you need to bid on related keywords.
You can create your PPC strategy by:
PPC ads could be the best way to gain quick results. An effective marketing strategy uses PPC ads and other marketing tactics to create an all-around strategy.
Email marketing is a direct marketing channel that lets you cost-efficiently convey your message to the target audience and convert prospects into leads. If done right, it can have a high return. For every dollar spent, you can have a return of $36 to $40.
Choose a platform to create your email marketing campaign. These platforms help in managing your list, and create and draft emails, segmentize them, test them and automatically run your campaign.
To send emails, you need to build your email list first. Many techniques are used to build it, like providing value to your audience, requesting them to join your newsletter, and then sending them exclusive value-driven content.
As the subscribers themselves signed up for your email list, they might develop into high-quality leads in the future. It would be best if you also worked on nurturing your leads by sending them personalized content and encouraging them to buy.
About 77% of Americans buy from the brand they follow; on average, they spend around 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media daily. It’s a great opportunity, and your business must use it well. Commonly used social media platforms include Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Social media platforms best serve businesses to connect, engage and generate leads from their audience. You must create a strategy based on your target audience and their demographics. Generally, it revolves around:
As compared to texts, the human brain can process visuals 60 times, making video crucial to the overall marketing strategy. Create a highly effective video message that is memorable and engaging.
Create an effective video marketing strategy by:
It is one of the fastest-growing tactics for online marketing, and you collaborate with influencers for your product promotion. These influencers might be traditional TV celebrities or social media influencers. They have a strong online presence with loyal followers.
Such type of marketing yields fruitful results as consumers tend to have a trust factor in the influencer they follow.
Here are a few steps that you need to follow to craft an effective influencer marketing strategy.
Additionally, stay authentic by genuinely partnering with an influencer who aligns with your brand value and audience. Stay transparent in your partnership and be respectful of others’ boundaries.
Your website is your asset instead of just your need. It lets you showcase your business and the people behind it online. A well-designed website will allow you communicate your brand message and drive conversion.
It’s the first positive message you can send to your audience. You can make use of it in your overall marketing strategy by:
Make sure your website is:
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SEO is an unpaid method to increase your website’s ranking and customers organically. It offers long-term results, which makes it an important part of every digital marketing campaign
Digital marketing has several types, including:
Conversion rate refers to the number of customers who have made purchases on your website.
Negative keywords are used to prevent a specific ad from being shown to the people who search against those keywords. These keywords are used as a filter to ensure that your ad is only shown to those who search for similar products that you offer.
Yes, digital marketing is equally beneficial for businesses of all types and sizes.
There are some common mistakes that you should avoid: