What is a marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy is a blueprint organizations create to get people interested in what they’re selling. It's about figuring out who your potential customers are, what they want, how to gain a competitive advantage, and how you can convince them that your product or service is the solution they've been looking for.

Think of it as your game plan. Just like a coach wouldn't send a team onto the field without a strategy, you shouldn't dive into the market without a clear idea of how you're going to win customers and stand out from the competition.

Why bother with a marketing strategy?

Your marketing strategy helps you stay in sync with your customer base, develop the right products for them and determine how you communicate information about those products.

According to a CoSchedule survey, companies who have a documented strategy are 313% more likely to be successful than those who don't.

Now, you might be wondering, "Can I just wing it?"

Well, yea. And you’ll probably be doing a lot of winging it because successful marketing organizations need to be agile. But here's 5 reasons why that's not the best idea:

It keeps you focused: With a strategy, you're not just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks. You have a clear direction.
It helps you understand your customers: By researching your target audience, you'll know exactly who you're talking to and what they care about.
It makes you stand out: A good strategy highlights what makes your business unique, helping you cut through the noise in a crowded market.
It saves you money: By planning ahead, you can allocate your resources more effectively, avoiding costly mistakes.
It makes decision-making easier: When new opportunities come up, you can quickly assess if they align with your overall strategy.

To put it simply, marketing is the entire cycle from identifying potential customers to satisfying those customers' needs with the products you produce.

marketing strategy: what is the marketing cycle?

What’s included in a marketing strategy?

An effective marketing strategy determines the general direction – but not the specific details – for a variety of marketing-related activities. Ideally, your marketing strategy should help you define the following for your company:

Target audience: Who you're going after
Market segmentation: How you group your customers
Value proposition: What your USP or competitive value is
Marketing budget: How you allocate resources
Product mix: What you're offering
Brand messaging: Where (and how) you stand in the market
Promotional initiatives: What other benefits can you offer
Content strategy: How you'll use content to meet your goals
AI integration: How you’ll leverage AI to scale the entire processWhy is a marketing strategy important?

Types of marketing strategies

There are multiple types of marketing strategies, including:

Content marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Paid media
Digital marketing
Product marketing
Email marketing
Social media campaign
Partnerships

While they all might have their separate teams, you ideally want to work with an integrated marketing approach. This offers a shared roadmap and tone of voice between the teams, leading to clear and consistent brand messaging across all marketing channels and marketing activities.

What you see in your press releases may differ slightly from the posts on your brand's social media platforms (eg. Instagram or LinkedIn) to align with specific buyer personas and behaviors, but the overall messaging between your marketing efforts should be on the same lines. This ensures for a smoother user experience, and a way more streamlined way of building brand awareness.

Getting started with your marketing strategy

Before you get started with crafting your digital marketing strategy, here are few items to check off your list that will help you in the long run:

Know your audience: First things first—who are you trying to reach? Dive deep into understanding your ideal customers. What are their habits? What problems do they face? Where do they hang out online and offline? The more you know, the better you can tailor your approach.

Set clear goals: What do you want to achieve? Maybe it's increasing sales by 20%, launching a new product, or boosting your social media following. Whatever it is, make your goals specific and measurable.

Craft your message: What makes your business special? This is your chance to shine. Develop a clear, compelling message that tells customers why they should choose you over the competition.

Choose your channels: Where will you reach your audience? Social media, email marketing, content marketing, paid ads—there are lots of options. Pick the channels that make the most sense for your audience and your message.

Plan your budget: How much can you afford to spend? Be realistic about your resources and allocate them wisely across your chosen channels.

Measure and adjust: The work doesn't stop once you launch your strategy. Keep track of what's working and what's not, and be ready to make changes as you go with clear KPIs and goals.

Marketing strategy template

There are several steps you need to take to create a successful marketing strategy for your business. Here’s a quick template you can follow to get you started:

Set definable business goals

Your company's vision and objectives are the driving factors behind your marketing strategy. These overall objectives help determine your marketing goals, which your marketing strategy is in service of.

Your marketing goals build on your company's goals. You might set a goal to achieve a specific market share, dominate a particular channel or reach a certain percentage of a certain type of consumer. Your goals should be reachable and measurable.

Identify and research the target market

The goals you set help you define the target market to pursue. This requires you to get familiar with the customers in this market, which requires some degree of market research and analysis. You need to determine the following about the target market and its customers:

Market size and growth potential
Trends in your market
Competitors
Customer pain points
Geographic and demographic characteristics
Appropriate media channels

From here, you can really develop your ideal customer profiles and buyer personas. And remember: you can't be competitive without knowing what your competitors are up to - competitor analysis is key to market penetration and moving up those search rankings.

Focus on the 7 Ps

marketing strategy: 7 Ps of marketing
Image source: Optimizely

As you develop your marketing strategy, you should focus on the traditional 7 Ps of marketing:

Product: How you satisfy customer needs
Price: How much customers are willing to pay for your product
Promotion: Which channels you use to tell customers about your product
Place: Where you sell your product
People: Individuals who help sell your product to customers
Packaging: How you present your product to the customer
Process: How you deliver your product to customers

Develop product plans

Once you understand your target customers, you can determine what products best serve those customers' needs. When you know what a customer wants, you can build the right product for that customer.

Developing the product falls outside the parameters of the marketing department, of course, as does producing the product. But marketing should have a prominent and vocal role in determining the product's features, pricing and packaging, as determined by customer needs and metrics.

Identify the key benefits

Savvy marketers know that new customers don't make decisions based on a new product's features but rather on how that product benefits them. It's essential to identify the key benefits of the products you develop – how that product best serves the customers' wants or needs.

Unsuccessful products often have attractive features but unless those features translate into benefits, customers simply don't care. It's not a matter of "if you build it, they will come," it's a matter of meeting your customers' needs.

Craft your positioning and messaging

Product positioning should build on a product's benefits and how the product meets the needs of the target audience. You have to deeply understand what your customers value and then position your product accordingly.

This follows through into all messaging surrounding the product. The product position may be that it's the best for meeting a particular need – the messaging communicates that positioning in a clear, concise and attention-getting fashion.

Don't forget to follow marketing trends as this can really increase your opportunity. For example, user-generated content (UGC) has become a real hit in recent years, so try and embrace this. This has developed from simple referral strategies or word-of-mouth, which can be done via testimonials and case studies that talk about your unique value.

Define your marketing mix

Finally, your marketing strategy should determine how you reach your target audience – what channels and activities you include in your marketing mix. This can include traditional channels like print, radio and television, as well as digital channels, social media and mobile apps.

Marketing strategy vs marketing plan: What's the difference?

The difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy is that while a marketing strategy sets the direction and longer-term objectives, a marketing plan goes into detail on the marketing campaigns, marketing tactics, and general timelines for strategy execution.

Get your own content marketing plan template here.

Bringing AI into the mix: The game-changer

Now, let's talk about the exciting part—how AI is revolutionizing marketing strategies. AI isn't just a buzzword; it's a powerful tool that can take your marketing efforts to the next level. Here's how:

Supercharged customer insights

AI can analyze vast amounts of data to give you deeper insights into your customers' behavior and preferences. It's like having a super-smart assistant who never sleeps, constantly learning about your audience.

How to use it: Start with AI-powered analytics tools that can segment your audience based on behavior patterns. This can help you create more targeted marketing management and customer campaigns.

Personalization at scale

Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all marketing. AI allows you to personalize content and offers for individual customers, even when you're dealing with thousands or millions of them.

How to use it: Implement AI-driven recommendation engines on your website or in your email marketing. These can suggest products or content based on a user's past behavior, increasing engagement and sales.

Chatbots and customer service

AI-powered chatbots can handle customer queries 24/7, providing instant responses and freeing up your team for more complex tasks.

How to use it: Start with a simple chatbot on your website or Facebook page to handle frequently asked questions. As you get more comfortable, you can expand its capabilities to handle more complex interactions.

Predictive analytics

AI can forecast trends and customer behavior, helping you stay ahead of the curve and make data-driven decisions.

How to use it: Use AI tools to analyze historical data and predict future trends. This can help with inventory management, pricing strategies, and identifying potential churn risks.

Content creation and optimization

While AI won't replace human creativity, it can certainly enhance it. AI tools can help generate ideas, write basic content, and optimize your existing content for better performance.

How to use it: Experiment with AI writing assistants for tasks like generating social media posts or email subject lines. Use AI-powered SEO tools to optimize your content for search engines.

Ad optimization

AI can continuously test and refine your ad campaigns, improving performance in real-time.

How to use it: Start with platforms like Google's Smart Bidding or Facebook's automated ad optimization tools. These use machine learning to adjust your bids and targeting for better results.

Voice and visual search optimization

As voice assistants and visual search become more popular, AI can help you optimize your content for these new search methods.

How to use it: Use AI tools to analyze how people are searching for products or services like yours using voice commands. Optimize your content to match these natural language queries.

Your AI-enhanced marketing strategy

Now that we've covered the basics and the AI possibilities, let's look at how you can create a marketing strategy that leverages these powerful tools:

Start with traditional research: Use surveys, interviews, and market research to understand your audience. Then, enhance this with AI-driven insights from social media listening tools and customer data platforms.
Set data-driven goals: Use AI predictive analytics to set realistic, achievable goals based on historical data and market trends.
Craft your message with AI assistance: Use AI writing tools to brainstorm ideas and refine your messaging. Remember, the final touch should always be human to ensure it resonates with your audience.
Choose channels strategically: Use AI-powered analytics to identify which channels your audience prefers and where they're most likely to engage with your content.
Create a content plan: Develop a content calendar, using AI tools to generate ideas and optimize your content for different platforms.
Implement personalization: Use AI to segment your audience and deliver personalized content and offers across all your channels.
Set up automated campaigns: Use AI-powered marketing automation tools to set up campaigns that respond to customer behavior in real-time.
Monitor and optimize continuously: Implement AI-driven analytics tools to constantly monitor your performance and make data-driven adjustments to your strategy.

Make Optimizely part of your marketing strategy

Optimizely One, our digital experience platform should be part of your company's marketing strategy. Optimizely's online solutions help you better manage your digital assets, optimize the customer experience, and enhance your company's ecommerce efforts, improving the effectiveness of your evolving marketing strategy.