A marketing strategy is a plan meant to ultimately bring you more business. But what are the crucial steps in between to help you get there?
In marketing I always say, “it all works together,” because there are many moving parts to an effective marketing strategy. You can’t have one thing performing successfully, like your website, for example, without having other moving parts in place.
So here are 5 (at least five) goals to keep in mind when creating a marketing strategy.
The 5 Marketing Strategy Goals:
Branding and Brand Awareness
Increase Website Traffic
Generate Leads
Establish Trust and Authority
Increase Revenue
1. Branding and Brand Awareness.
The first step to any solid marketing strategy is to have a solid foundation; This is your brand.
Your brand is knowing who you are and who you serve. It’s knowing your values, tone of voice, and brand personality. And we can’t forget your visual identity as well, from your logo to fonts and color palette. Why is it so important to lay this solid foundation?
Your brand will infiltrate every aspect of your marketing strategy and marketing efforts. It will affect every channel of your online presence from your website, ads, social media, and email marketing and ultimately the client experience.
Once your branding is solid then you can begin to work on bringing awareness to your brand to put you in front of the right audience. Branding is not marketing but it is the foundation of it. (Learn more about the differences between mranding and marketing).
To create awareness of your brand, share your story, share your why, and speak directly to your target audience and their pain points. As harsh as this may sound, people don’t care about your business, they care about their problems. They want to feel like businesses are speaking directly to them and understand them. So be their solution, no matter how big or small.
In order for them to hear you, you need to be where your audience is. Show up on social media. If you are a business that helps other businesses, then LinkedIn may be the place for you. If you are a business that helps a certain demographic, learn where they hang out. Is it Facebook? Instagram? TikTok? Then you want to be there too.
From there, engage with them. The goal is to help drive them to other channels online, like your website.
2. Increase Website Traffic.
The goal of any good marketing strategy is to increase website traffic. Everyone wants to increase website traffic, right? It’s really a no brainer. Your website is your business’s online hub. You just need to get people there. But how?
With content marketing you can drive people from your social networks to your website. Be sure to always provide incentive for them to click! What is waiting for them on your website that they don’t want to miss? (Learn how to create more content in less time).
Use paid ads through Google, Facebook, and other social networks and link to your website. Again, the ads should provide an incentive to click.
Work on your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to increase your site’s ranking. Blogs can help with this, too, by giving Google and other search engines more content to index.
These are just a few ways to increase your website traffic. And be sure you have website analytics in place so you can track website activity. Once you see what people are interested in (or not interested in) you can make adjustments. (Here's another trick to increase website traffic).
Now that people are coming to your site, what’s the next goal?
3. Generate Leads
Once you have traffic coming to your website you can begin to gather leads. That’s the whole point right? To find people who are interested so you can stay in touch. But how?
With a lead magnet!
A lead magnet could be anything of value from a free educational guide, a free checklist, or a how-to that visitors can download. Or maybe it’s a sign-up form to a newsletter or promotional offer. No matter what it is, require an email address from the visitor to access it.
This gets you your lead without any major obligations for them. Just be careful not to ask for too much information up front; A name and email is good to start. Asking for much more than that and your possible leads could get spooked and you’ll lose them.
Once you have your leads, you can continue to offer more value and begin to build a trusting relationship between you and your leads.
4. Establish Trust And Authority
People want to work with those they know, like, and trust. It takes time to build this trust and authority. On average, it can take 7 to 20 touchpoint before people make the decision to buy or contact you. That means you need to constantly be in front of your target audience so they can get familiar with you. It is why consistency matters and why marketing takes time - you have to be patient. But it will pay off. So how can you begin to build this trust?
Email marketing is a great way to stay top of mind, while getting closer with your leads, without being intrusive.
Always provide value in your emails and end by giving them a little nudge to “learn more” or “check out your latest offer,” just don’t be all sales. Instead, share helpful tips, exclusive offers or insights that they can’t get anywhere else.
How often should you send emails? Anywhere from 2-8 emails per month is average. Avoid sending more that this. Too many emails and you can begin to appear spammy and can annoy your leads, become just another email they delete, or worse they could unsubscribe for good.
Once you begin to establish a stronger relationship with your leads, they are more likely to buy or book that appointment.
5. Increase Revenue
All of the steps taken to get here is typically referred to as a funnel.
Through all of these goals you are funneling leads into a system where hopefully they will ultimately becomes paying customers or clients. It takes the whole process to get to this point. It ultimately comes down to clarity of who you are and what you offer while also building trust in those who discover you and building lasting relationships with your leads.
By keeping all these goals in mind, you can work to increase your revenue. But it doesn’t stop here.
Even after the purchase is complete, or they become a client, don’t stop! It is easier and you are more likely to get return business from past customers and clients than to get new ones. So you have to keep working to stay top of mind and keep them interested in coming back for more.
Don’t forget to track what’s working and what’s not to continue to perfect your strategy and reach each goal.
Now what?
This all sounds great, but now you’ve got to make it happen. Remember, these are just some of the goals that you, or your marketing professional, should be working on to help you accomplish your business goals. But you’re busy running a small business.
Maybe you’re looking to outsource? Reach out. I’d love to help you and your small business create a strategy that works for you!
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