Your marketing strategy is the way you communicate your message to your target audience or customers. It can help you achieve goals, such as raising brand awareness or increasing your sales. Everything you do, say, or write as a brand or business is a part of your marketing strategy. To make sure you’re doing it right, you need to plan your steps ahead.
This is why it’s crucial that you write an effective marketing strategy that will guide you through the process of accomplishing your goals. If you don’t know how to do it or need some help, just keep reading. Below, you’ll find a guide with 7 essential steps to write a killer marketing strategy.
Let’s break it down together.
1. Set Your Goals
Before you start thinking about the means you’ll use to accomplish your goals, you first need to set them.
Think about the things you want to achieve and clearly define the goals you’re setting for your new marketing strategy. Anything can be a goal:
- raise brand awareness
- reach more people
- increase sales
- increase website traffic
- promote your products or services
- enter a new market
Know your goals and be certain about what you want to achieve. Then craft your strategy with those goals in mind.
2. Improve Your Targeting
Whether you’re a travel blogger or the CEO of a successful company, you know you’ve got a target audience. Your target audience is all those people that could potentially become your customers.
And, the better you define them, and the more you learn about them, the better your marketing strategy results will be.
Therefore, improve your targeting and define your buyer persona by:
- age
- sex
- location
- online behavior
- social status
- interests
- pain points
Be sure that you’ve got them figured out to the smallest details and you’ll know how to reach them using your marketing strategy.
3. Choose Your Distribution Channels
Your marketing strategy will be based on the channel and platforms you’ll use to distribute your promotional messages and your marketing content.
Choose the platforms you’ll be using to accomplish the goals you’ve set. Think about your target audience and which channel will suit them the most.
Choose from the following:
- your website
- social media
- your blog
- email marketing
- ads
For each platform or channel that you choose, you’ll have to create specific content in the form that fits that channel.
4. Plan For Content Creation
Content creation is another important segment of your marketing strategy, and you need to learn how to plan and create it.
When it comes to content creation, there are certain universal rules everyone has to follow, regardless of the type of their business or their industry. Here’s what we have in mind:
- Value
The content you share and create has to add some kind of value to your target customers. It could be useful information, latest news, entertaining facts, or something similar. But, it has to matter to them. - Uniqueness
Think about your competitors and the amount of content you all produce in a single day. To stand out, you mustn’t copy anyone. You need to find a unique formula. - Relevance
You need to create relevant, up to date, and trending content. Nobody wants to read yesterday’s news, so stay informed and publish the content your target audience wants to learn more about.
If you think you need help with content creation, you can always outsource for help from a content writer or online services such as this academic writing service.
5. Write a USP
Let’s make one thing clear-you can’t go very far without a killer unique selling proposition (USP). Your USP is a way for you to inform your potential customer’s about the following:
- why you’re better than your competitors
- why they need to choose you
- what you offer and promise to them
A USP should be a catchy, memorable phrase that people will tie directly to your brand every time they hear it.
Let’s take a look at some of the world-renowned brand’s USPs:
- The Economist: Seen the news? Now discover the story.
- Dollar Shave Club: Shave and Grooming Made Simple.
- HubSpot: There’s a better way to grow.
- Ben and Jerry’s: We make the best possible ice cream in the best possible way.
Just like the brands above, you too need to create a strong USP that will inspire more people to become your customers and start trusting you.
6. A/B Testing
When you’re planning for a new marketing strategy, you’re working with very little data and can’t be completely sure how your audience is going to respond. They might like it or hate it.
This is why you shouldn’t put all your eggs in a single basket.
Instead, you should use A/B testing to learn about your target audience’s:
- taste
- preferences
- likes and dislikes
Test different versions of sponsored social media ads, welcome emails, or pop-up forms, and measure the success each version makes.
A/B testing will help you improve your marketing strategy immensely, so make sure you plan for it and make it a regular part of your marketing efforts.
7. Include Strong Branding
Branding is an inevitable part of every marketing strategy. You need to create a brand image and make sure it’s visible in every marketing step you make.
Here’s what we have in mind:
- brand colors in social media posts or blog posts
- brand personality in everything you publish
- unique and consistent tone & voice
- uniformed design and visuals
Don’t forget to include your branding strategy into your marketing strategy and ensure the two are working together.
Final Thoughts
Writing an effective marketing strategy requires you to create and implement a detailed plan for reaching your goals as a brand, business, or person. You have to combine different elements into a single strategy and focus on accomplishing the goals you’ve set.
Follow the steps we’ve shared above to create an effective marketing strategy. Work hard on achieving your goals and enjoy the results of your hard work.
Author’s bio. Daniela McVicker is a passionate digital marketer. Daniela is interested in everything related to SEO and blogging. She collaborates with Essayguard and other websites where she shares her experience and helps marketers make their names in the online world.
