Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy is a well-thought-out plan encompassing activities to convert leads into customers and reach the brand’s long-term and short-term goals. It implies understanding consumers’ needs, selecting communication channels, and developing a competitive advantage.

In this article, we’ll review the 6 types of marketing strategies and get to know how to create a successful strategy for your business.

Why is it important to have a marketing strategy?

Business owners spend time and money to develop a clear and detailed marketing strategy and contribute to the success and growth of their companies. A strategy that encompasses the target audience, company objectives, vision, positioning, and activity plan for social media channels, website, and ads enables you to move towards your business objectives. As a result, you target the right audience with relevant offers.

A marketing strategy outlines your short-term and long-term goals and sets the direction towards their achievement. This blueprint will help you decide what you need to do in the upcoming day, week, month, and year to improve sales, reach more customers, and increase revenues. A plan ensures that you stay consistent across different marketing channels and provide relevant content.

If you want to know more benefits of having a marketing strategy, let’s review them in detail. Brands prepare plans because they help

• understand customers’ problems and provide relevant solutions;
• allocate resources wisely;
• stay consistent across different marketing channels;
• provide consumers with relevant content;
• create advertising campaigns that resonate with the target audience;
• establish businesses that stand out;
• maximize profits;
• utilize resources efficiently;
• cater to the customers’ desires and needs;
• communicate your value and benefits;

Now that you know why it’s important to have a marketing strategy, it’s time to explore the types. The next section will help you figure out which one you need.

6 Types of Marketing Strategies

You can find various types of strategies, yet not all of them help attain the same goals. We’ve listed the most effective and popular marketing strategies companies use daily. After reading this section, you’ll be able to choose the most suitable ones for your business needs.

Email marketing strategy

With more than 4 billion email users worldwide, email marketing remains one of the most effective marketing approaches. You can appeal to customers on your list with product features, enticing offers, and new releases. This method helps you communicate the value of your brand and keep customers engaged between the purchases in a non-intrusive way.

If consumers show interest in your product and company, you can easily reach them through email campaigns and start a conversation. Your main task is to develop relevant, consistent, and appealing emails with quality content. Luckily, now many email marketing tools help build compelling email campaigns. SendPulse’s email builder allows you to design an appealing email from scratch or use one of the ready-to-go professional email templates. You can send 15,000 emails to 500 subscribers for free.

For example, below you can see how to create an email campaign with SendPulse’s email builder.

Social media strategy

The number of social media users is constantly increasing. It indicates the necessity to develop a specific social media strategy. A detailed outline for your actions is a must if you use social media networks for promotion. Social media channels will help you increase sales, boost website traffic, establish brand awareness, etc. You can find potential customers and demonstrate the main benefits of your product on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Promoting your product on social media networks empowers you to encourage lead generation, improve conversions, and foster relationships with prospects.

For example, you can create a branded hashtag and use it on various social media platforms. It will help you establish brand awareness and encourage customers to tag your brand. Coca-Cola uses branded hashtags to market and promote its new products.

Content marketing strategy

Content plays a vital role in keeping users engaged and initiating a sale. Content creation should be your priority because only quality informative and interesting articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, PDFs, and social media ads can grab people’s attention. A powerful content marketing strategy contains buyer personas, business cases, brand positioning, action plan, and value proposition. An effective and well-thought-out strategy results in increased visibility on search engines, better traction on social media networks, and customer trust.

Let’s take McDonald’s “Our Food Your Questions” campaign. McDonald’s Canada decided to run a campaign and answer all consumers’ questions about the brand’s products. By responding to customers’ inquiries, McDonald’s managed to build a trusting relationship with its target audience and change perceptions. Since people love honesty and transparency, the campaign had great success.

SEO strategy

Search engine optimization helps your website’s content appear in the top results of search engines. Organize your content so that users can find it easily when they type the query in the search field. As a result, users see your website and content when they search for answers to specific questions. Quality content encourages people to visit your website and read articles. As a result, your organic traffic improves. SEO strategy allows you to stay on track with consumers’ needs. A detailed plan of action enables you to choose relevant topics, use the necessary keywords, and deliver blog posts on time.

Create SEO content. When you write articles, make sure to include high-quality information. Use different formats of visuals, like infographics, photos, videos, etc. It will enable you to provide content that looks appealing and engaging to readers.

The infographic below provides readers with tips they will definitely remember. It’s visually appealing, short, and sweet.

Public relations strategy

PR strategy enables marketers to share a company’s value with society and build a positive public image. The strategy is essential for business owners who want to maintain a favorable brand image in the eyes of stakeholders, competitors, media, governmental institutions, etc. Your PR team should be ready to prepare news releases, become spokespeople at various events, organize press conferences, search for cooperation with other businesses within the same industry, and pitch stories to the media. It helps you drive interest, build a positive reputation, inform people about a product, and increase demand. After creating an effective PR strategy, you’ll be able to reach your goals in the media field.

For example, participating in events is a great idea. ContentTECH Summit will be a perfect choice for marketing platforms ready to bring innovation to customers. It’s a great opportunity to promote a new product.

Marketing communications strategy

Your team should consider the company's main message and value proposition when creating this strategy. Organize meetings and brainstorm with your team members to create a message that communicates your product’s value and benefits. Make sure your value proposition resonates with the needs and problems of your target audience. To develop a relevant strategy, consider exploring your demographics, understanding customers’ needs and desires, identifying their pain points, and using the right mediums.

For example, Patagonia developed environmental responsibility and animal welfare programs to show customers how they produce its products.

Now that you know the main types, let’s reveal how to develop a successful marketing strategy.

How to create a successful marketing strategy?

Reaching your short-term and long-term business goals requires you to develop a clear and detailed action plan. If you want to build a powerful marketing strategy, we’ll show you how. Follow our step-by-step guide to do everything right and bring success to your brand.

1. Determine your primary goals. Goal-setting is effective when you have SMART goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. To have your marketing efforts aligned, you need to identify your business goals. The objectives you set depend on the product you offer and market. Your target can be related to building brand awareness, reaching new customers, boosting sales, etc.
2. Create a marketing plan. While a marketing strategy outlines the reasons to take specific actions, a marketing plan is a blueprint of what you need to do to attain your goals. Include the necessary actions, yearly budget, essential initiatives, and suitable marketing channels.
3. Research competitors. Competitor analysis will help you identify your rivals and the products they offer. You can define your competitive advantage by outlining their features, unique value proposition, and advertising strategy. After conducting an analysis, you’ll be able to identify gaps in the market, unveil trends, and develop a product that meets expectations.
4. Develop buyer personas. Conduct research to understand your customers and identify their needs, desires, and pain points. After the analysis, you’ll unveil their buying patterns. Define your ideal customer, including occupation, gender, age, interests, problems, needs, location, etc. Make a short description of your customer. For example, Linda, a young woman in her 20s living in a city, is looking for books in economics necessary for her research. Remember, designing a buyer persona is a must for a successful and effective marketing strategy.
5. Choose relevant tools. Many marketing tools will help you receive customer insights and manage your marketing efforts. Google Analytics provides insights into your web page's performance, Agorapulse empowers you to organize your social media activities ahead, Ahrefs allows you to find relevant keywords, and SendPulse enables you to automate communication with consumers. The service helps you design and send appealing email campaigns, set up chatbots, and deliver SMS and web push notifications.
6. Choose necessary media. There are three main types of media: paid, owned, and earned media. Paid media refers to the mediums you spend money on to promote your product. Examples include direct mail, billboards, magazines, websites, etc. Owned media is the materials your team created, like photos, articles, blog posts, posts on social media, videos, podcasts, and more. Earned media refers to user-generated content. Examples include tweets about your product and brand mentions on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Organize all your content into three groups based on the characteristics we’ve already mentioned.

Congrats, now you know what a marketing strategy is and why it’s crucial. Use our step-by-step guide to develop an effective strategy for your business.

References:

1. This article defines the term and unveils the benefits.
2. In this article, you’ll find the types of marketing strategies.

Last Updated: 22.03.2023