By Alexa Collins
Marketing
March 9, 2022
Read time: 20 minutes
Email, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
Why Do You Need a Marketing Strategy?
A marketing strategy is the comprehensive approach businesses use to attract customers. Within a marketing strategy, companies will employ various tactics – such as organic and paid marketing – across channels like email and social media or text messaging.
Without a marketing strategy, businesses can end up in a miserable state where they try many tactics that don’t work together. This type of haphazard approach can leave you spending a lot of money and time on things that don’t bring in new customers.
A clear and cohesive marketing strategy addresses how to bridge gaps, what you will do when things don’t work, and how you will adapt. What is the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing model?
What is the Difference Between a Marketing Strategy and a Marketing Model?
A marketing model acts as a roadmap for the customer journey. It outlines the different stages people go through on their way to becoming first-time and repeat customers. It visually represents your approach and outlines the various activities and tactics you will use at each stage. If the marketing model is what people do at each stage of the buying journey, the marketing strategy is how you move people from one step in the model to the next.
Marketing funnels serve as roadmaps for the journey someone takes to become a customer. The marketing strategy, on the other hand, describes how to move people from one step in the funnel to the next.
How to Build a Marketing Strategy That Works
Marketing for small businesses can be challenging, especially with the vast number of approaches you can take. That’s why we’ve broken things down into two distinct phases: calibration and execution. During the calibration phase, you will define key components such as your website, the rationale behind your product, product-market fit, your target audience, and your audience’s needs. During the execution phase, you will begin to build relationships, gain trust, and use organic and paid leverages to drive sales and grow your business.
Calibration: Steps 1 – 3
Before you begin, the exercises in the calibration phase ensure you present your business in a way that attracts potential customers. 1. Build a Great Website
“The question I ask before thinking about email, advertising, or social media is: Would you buy something from your website?” says Shopify expert Ben Zettler. “If you can’t answer that question with a resounding yes, then you have a problem.”
Building a great website is the first step in finding a marketing strategy that works. The quality of the site, user experience, checkout functionality, product information, design, and product images – all contribute to how a person feels about your brand and the trust they place in you as a company.
2. Define Your Product-Market Fit
Once someone lands on your site, how do you clearly articulate the problem your product solves? Ben recommends considering the following questions: What is the “why” behind the products you sell? What problem does your product solve? Are you filling a gap in the market, or creating something better than your competitors, or solving a critical unmet need? Why should someone buy your product instead of the competition? What makes your products better?
3. Consider Your Target Audience
You can have the best product photography, website design, compelling copy, and incredible products, but if you are marketing to the wrong audience – or worse, to everyone – you may fail to grow.
You can identify your target audience through both quantitative and qualitative research. Conduct quantitative research to discover your target audience:
- Analyze the competition.
- Conduct research interviews.
- Administer surveys.
- Know
- Talk to people.
- Use tools like Google Analytics to get guiding data about the target audience.
- Review purchase information.
- Conduct industry research.
- Spend $1-300 a month and earn 1% on total purchases
- Spend $301-500 a month and earn 2% on total purchases
- Spend $501+ a month and earn 3% on total purchases
Conduct quantitative research to understand your target audience:
Execution: Steps 4 – 5
You’ve done the foundational work. Now it’s time to build acquisition strategies (how you will bring new customers to your store) and retention strategies (how you will make customers come back).
4. Acquire New Customers with a Shock-Proof Mindset
Taylor Holiday introduced the concept of shock-proof e-commerce in an in-depth article on the subject. The idea is to build your business in ways that allow it to grow robustly in the face of chaos – you will gain a larger market share if you succeed while others stumble due to a lack of strong foundations.
Increase organic traffic before spending money on paid ads
The amount of money you put into paid ads largely depends on your business model. But Taylor says it’s better to start with an organic approach rather than a paid one. If you start with a paid approach, you will spend money to achieve unpredictable results.
Instead, reach out directly to as many people as possible on social media and present your product to them. Look for communities on Facebook, introduce yourself, and share your product. Email your friends and family.
5. Increase Retention
Customer retention is much cheaper and easier than acquiring new customers. In addition to building trust through community engagement and word-of-mouth promotion, building long-term trust with both non-customers and customers is what will bring them back.
Create compelling email marketing campaigns
Before you can create professional email campaigns and write engaging subject lines, you need to build a strong email list. Provide an incentive for people to join your email list, whether that’s a discount or something else that adds real value for your customers. Think about things like free shipping, a percentage discount, buy one get one free, early access to promotions, exclusive access to products, or a free gift with purchase.
Now, once you have their information and they have made their first purchase, Ben recommends setting up a post-purchase email flow. This is your opportunity to offer a coupon code for a future purchase, request feedback and reviews, and encourage user-generated content.
Create a loyalty program
There’s a very popular local supermarket in a small ski town outside San Diego. It has gained a reputation for its tri-tip steak, a delicious cut of meat loved by locals served on tacos or slices on warm San Diego days. It’s where people go for lunch, with ready-to-eat food sections competing with the best and biggest Whole Foods stores.
The market has implemented a loyalty program where repeat customers can earn cash to use on groceries by scanning it every time they shop.
This is how it works:
The market sends reward checks twice a year, as long as the amount exceeds $10. Customers buy and earn rewards – there’s an incentive (beyond the delicious goods) to return.
Similarly, Girlfriend Collective, a sustainable activewear brand, has a loyalty program that is based on customer lifetime value. The more a customer spends in the store, the greater the benefits they earn, such as free shipping, early access to new products, and free returns.
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The programs play the game of commerce and offer incentives to bring customers back. The amount you will lose in shipping, for example, is significantly compensated when a current customer makes another purchase. Why? Because you didn’t have to spend money acquiring a new person.
Building a Flexible Marketing Strategy
Marketing in e-commerce is very challenging. It’s not always a linear journey, and it takes trial and error to get the right results. If you’re struggling to find a marketing strategy that works for your business, go back to the beginning. Talk again with the few people who invested in your business and chat with them once more. What do they want to see from you in the future? What got them excited about your brand in the first place? Their insights can help you restructure your marketing efforts in a way that better serves your audience.
If you feel like things are moving slowly, that’s okay. The shock-absorbent approach to e-commerce is meant to take time. The longer you spend building your foundation, the better prepared your brand will be to grow and thrive long-term.
Frequently Asked Questions About Marketing Strategy
What does marketing strategy mean?
A marketing strategy is the plan of action that a company uses to market its products and services with the goal of achieving its objectives. It involves activities such as researching and analyzing the target audience, identifying the most suitable channels and tactics to reach them, and choosing the most effective ways to convey the company’s message.
What are the four types of marketing strategies?
Product/Service Strategy: Focuses on the features, quality, and value of the product to attract customers. Pricing Strategy: Establishes competitive prices aligned with market conditions and company goals. Promotion Strategy: Creates an effective mix of advertising, public relations, sales, and other forms of communication to reach customers. Distribution Strategy: Establishes the channels necessary to deliver products or services to customers.
What is an example of a marketing strategy?
Promotion: Formulating a promotional plan that includes advertising campaigns, special offers, and discounts. Public Relations: Leveraging public relations to create awareness and excitement around your brand. Digital Marketing: Establishing an effective digital marketing strategy that includes search engine optimization, paid ads, and social media campaigns. Content Marketing: Creating content that captures the attention of the target audience and establishes your expertise in the industry. Offline Marketing: Developing an offline marketing strategy to reach potential customers and build relationships with current ones. Events: Organizing or sponsoring events to promote your brand and build relationships with customers.
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