6 Steps for Creating a Successful Marketing Strategy

Does the idea of marketing feel big and intimidating? I get it, but it shouldn’t. In reality, marketing is just the way you connect with the people who are most interested in your product or service.  I think we often overthink it and forget to just get take it back to the basics and focus on what we have to offer and why people are interested in having it.  Today I’m going to spell out 6 steps that you can take to create your marketing strategy and use it to identify, find, and attract the people who are most interested in you and your products or services.

#1 Define your Target Audience

WHO really appreciates you and what you offer?  Who are they?  What do they like to do?  Where do they hang out?  What pain point in their life do you solve? Doing this work is often referred to as identifying your target client or your ideal client avatar (ICA).  All you’re really doing is thinking about the specific type of person who is most interested in what you have to offer. Think about your most passionate supporters as you consider this.  What are the common threads among them? Identifying those traits and characteristics will help you begin to develop a picture of who your ideal client is. 

Once you’ve identified WHO your people are and understand more about their life and habits, you can use that information to find more of the same types of people who may be interested in you and what you offer.  If your ICA loves your product, the people they associate with will most likely love your product too, so you just need to identify where they are and find a way to get in front of them.

#2 Identify your Unique Position

Once you’ve done the work to distill down the details of your ideal client,  you’ll want to spend a little time evaluating your competition; not so you can mimic what they’re doing, but so you can determine what makes you unique and use that to attract your ideal clients. What is it about you and your company that is different from others in your same space?  What do you do differently or better than the others?  Why do your customers come to you versus them?  What words do your customers use when they talk about you? This is valuable insight that you can use in developing your marketing strategy.

#3 Set your Goals

The next step is to step back and determine what your actual marketing goals are.  Depending on your business, it could be a number of things.  It would be easy to just say that more sales are our marketing goal, but that is a pretty wide and vast goal and doesn’t give any specific details that will help you measure success along the way.  Sure, more sales are the ultimate goal, but if you know that you “close” 1 out of every 5 clients you can get on the phone for a call, then more calls may be your goal.  If you know that people who spend 15 minutes or more on your website buy 60% of the time, then the goal may be to get people on your website. If you know that 75% of the people who purchase your online course attend a free training event first, you’ll want to get more people to your free training events.  Can you see how this works? 

If you’re relatively new, you may not have a clear idea of what is actually driving your sales and you’re still in the process of figuring that out.  That’s ok, and everyone has to start there.  But having a consistent strategy that you can track to help you figure that out will be the key to your success as you go forward. 

#4  Develop a Plan 

Now that you know what your goals are, it’s time to think about how you’re going to achieve them.   This is where all of the work you’ve done previously will come into play.  It’s important to keep  YOUR customers in mind as you put your plan together.   Where do your customers hang out, what attracts them to you, and what can you do to inform, educate, and interest them enough to do business with you?  What platforms and methods are you going to use?  It is important that you develop a plan that is right for you and your customers.  If your ideal client doesn’t hang out on TikTok, then no sense in wasting your time posting there, right?  It’s so easy to get caught up in what everyone else is doing, but if that doesn’t serve you or your customers, don’t waste your time.  What makes sense for your customers?  A weekly email, a blog, an online class?  What process will your customers go through, from the time they first learn about you to their purchase of your product or service?  Those are the details your plan needs to include.

#5 Implement the Plan

Once you’ve put your game plan together and have laid out all the details, it’s time to put it into motion.  This is where the rubber meets the road, and the plan you’ve outlined in step 4 will come to life.  If you’ve created a detailed plan, you will know exactly what you need to do and when.  The only thing left to decide is who is responsible for each piece, and then you and your team can get to work creating content and putting it out into the world.  This piece is critical.  If you know all the things you want to do and how you’re going to do them, but you haven’t made someone responsible for getting it done, your plan will never get off the ground and your goals will remain a pipe dream. 

#6 Measure Results

The final step in creating your successful marketing strategy will be measuring results.  You can do all the research, come up with the content, create beautiful marketing materials and execute the plan, but if you don’t measure the results, you’ll have no way to know if it’s working or not.  The whole point of this is to achieve the goals you set early on, right?  So how will you know if you’ve achieved your goals if you don’t track and measure them?  You’ll need to have a plan for how you’re going to track your results so you can set yourself up for success from day one.  Identify the key results you want to measure, and then track them to analyze your results.  This doesn’t have to be complicated, so keep it simple, but you will have to do it if you want to learn what is working in your business and what isn’t.  This is a key step that so many small business owners don’t take as seriously as they should, and it can be the biggest difference maker in your success or lack of it. 

Tracking things like the number of blog visitors, email list subscribers, phone calls, clicks, and sales will help you understand the relationship between the information you’re putting out there and your potential client’s response to it.  Tracking the behaviors of your potential clients with the marketing content you’re putting in front of them will help you determine what is working, and make decisions about what to do more of and what to stop doing.  Your time as a small business owner is limited, so making sure you’re spending your time doing the things that matter most is absolutely critical.

To summarize, the following six steps are critical in your quest to develop a successful marketing strategy:

1. Define your Target Audience
2. Identify your Unique Position
3. Set your Goals
4. Develop a Plan
5. Implement the Plan
6. Measure Results

I hope this has given you some insight into the key components of developing a successful marketing strategy. Are there other components you consider when developing your marketing strategy? Let me know in the comments below.

We’re really just scratching the surface here, but we’ll continue this conversation as we go forward. This also gives you an idea of some of the work I can help you with in your business.  As a Digital Marketing and Operations Consultant, I can help you work through the entire process from start to finish. Feel free to reach out and set up a discovery call if you’d like to chat about how I can help.