The first and most crucial step in your marketing strategy is marking your online territory. When you create your own website, you're claiming a digital space that's entirely yours. Next, you'll need to outline your company's growth plan using the right marketing strategies to generate more leads, web traffic and acquire new customers. From influencer marketing and PR to SEO, we'll explore precisely which types of marketing to focus on in the year ahead to fuel significant growth for your business.
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What is a marketing strategy?
A marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan designed to promote products or services, attract customers and achieve short, medium or long term business goals. Its ultimate goal is to reach your target audience through marketing and advertising campaigns and then get them to buy or engage with your service. It can also help you map our your target audience, as well as the best ways to reach them with tracking and insights.
Essentially, a marketing strategy is an overarching plan that anyone deciding how to start a business, or working with an existing business use to increase visibility and ultimately their profits. It can involve anything from creating a strong brand identity to developing innovative products and services. Successful marketing strategies should be tailored to your specific goals and objectives.
Creating strategic marketing strategies starts with defining what is product marketing for your niche, understanding where you are now, identifying key areas of improvement and focusing on achieving specific goals.
It should include:
Goals of your business, e.g., to brand awareness or to sell services and products
Your target market and research on who they are and where they are
Buyer personas and informational on your customer demographics, if relevant
Competitors, including their marketing strategies and pricing
Value of your product or services for your target customers
Your company's value proposition and what sets up apart from competitors
Your key branding messaging as this must run consistently through all your marketing materials and campaigns
What is the purpose of a marketing strategy?
Marketing strategies can have many different purposes. The main ones often cited are:
Brand awareness
Stronger customer relationships, both with existing and potential ones
Competitive advantage, whether through more website traffic or greater brand awareness
Furthers business goals, whether these revolve around building a brand or selling more
Marketing strategy vs. marketing plan
While these terms are used interchangeably, marketing strategies are broader summaries of what your business does to overcome your pain points, meet your goals and reach your audience.
A strategy provides a larger picture of how you plan to stay ahead of your competition. It can reveal threats that you may need to consider for long-term sustainability. By contrast, the marketing plan methodically outlines details of how you will implement your strategies and how you will track your marketing ROI.
Additionally, your marketing plan is highly detailed and involves the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. It helps to ensure a more integrated marketing approach—that is, a unified message across all of your promotional channels.
The main types of marketing
The main types of marketing can be broadly divided into two categories: traditional marketing and digital marketing.
Traditional marketing
This type relies on offline channels to reach its target audience and consumers.
Examples include print (newspapers, magazines, brochures), broadcast (TV, radio commercials), direct mail (catalogs, coupons), outdoor advertising (billboards, bus ads) and in-person or online public relations (press releases, media events).
Digital marketing
This type uses and takes place on online channels to connect with consumers. It includes content marketing (blog posts, articles, videos), social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), search engine optimization (SEO) for better search ranking, search engine marketing (paid ads on search results), email marketing, affiliate marketing (partnering with other websites) and mobile marketing (text messages, apps).
Why marketing strategies matter
There are plenty of benefits to defining your marketing strategies early on. Marketing strategies are essential for businesses as it helps them to identify their goals and objectives, understand their target audience, and develop an effective approach to reach out to them. A well-crafted marketing strategy can help you gain a competitive advantage, improve your brand image and increase sales and revenue. Setting clear goals and objectives and aligning the marketing strategies to achieve them best sets you up for success. To understand more about the theory behind why marketing matters, we recommend the ideas and work of Michael Porter. He is credited with developing the concept of competitive advantage, for example. There's a lot to be gained from understanding his research and incorporating it into your marketing management.
Furthermore, marketing budgets might be limited when starting a business, and a clear plan ensures you won't waste any resources. Besides, how will you measure success if you don't first establish what it looks like or how you'll get there in your small business marketing goals?
The main elements of a marketing strategy: what makes it good
These may vary but generally include:
Establishing your target audience through market analysis
Deciding on your Unique Selling Proposition, Go to market strategy
Creating your market positioning, and establishing product differentiation, how customers will perceive you and your product
Establishing your pricing
Setting the budget for your marketing strategy
Implementation of your chosen strategy
Continuous tracking and improvement of your plan
For more information on what makes an effective modern marketing strategy, we recommend looking to Phil Kotler, whose work on marketing management and the importance of connecting with your audience, has been instrumental in improving marketing strategies.
The 4 Ps (now 5 Ps) of marketing
Not sure where to start with this? Consider using the marketing mix, or 4 Ps of marketing. This is an approach that helps organizations develop and implement effective marketing strategies. It consists of four key elements that collectively shape a company's marketing approach—product, price, promotion and place or distribution.
In addition to this some models now include a 5th P: People. Focusing on the importance of customer and employee interactions in the marketing mix.
11 best marketing strategies
One of the biggest challenges in marketing strategies is keeping up with changing market trends and consumer preferences. Developing an effective marketing strategy can also require significant time, resources and expertise; the list of the types of marketing strategies out there is extensive. By analyzing the top marketing trends and doing in-depth customer and market research, we've narrowed it down to the top 10 strategies for you.
Remember that no matter which methods you decide to include, they will only be effective if your audience likes and trusts your business. As you carry out campaigns, aim to educate, inspire or entertain your audience, so you'll see the most impactful results.
01. Content marketing
In the past decade, there's been a shift in the marketing mindset. Today we see a rise in blogs, podcasts and webinars that are engaging and inclusive to audiences—so they feel more connected with brands.
Creating valuable and informative content has become a win-win especially when it comes to developing and improving customer engagement. Content marketing creates a strategic opportunity for your business to connect with a customer meaningfully.
Content marketing also helps you generate awareness, become an authority and tell a story. Focusing on this strategy early on is handy for other marketing ideas, as you can share your content on social media or in email newsletters later. The most popular content strategies are:
Content writing
Infographics
02. Social media marketing
An estimated 71% of small-to-mid-sized businesses use social media for marketing, and 60% reported success with social media ads, according to these small business marketing statistics. This high percentage comes as no surprise. Social media marketing is one of the most influential ways to use digital marketing to increase visibility and gain traffic to your website. More so, it can be a valuable lead generation method, a sales channel, an audience insights tool and a customer service outlet.
From Instagram Reels to TikTok, your options of getting in front of new audiences are endless. Ensure you strategically choose which channels you focus most on, based on your target audience. If you aim to reach a professional audience, LinkedIn is a must for creating a company page. Social media platforms are a great way to secure first-mover advantage, a concept in marketing and business when companies are the first to market in a specific product category. The speed at which it's possible to generate and distribute multimedia content on social media is ideal for this.
Related reading: The dead internet theory and how to protect your brand from bots
Video marketing is a format that is becoming more heavily favored on social media as users consume more content on their mobile devices (this marketing strategy also works well if you're focusing on mobile marketing), so consider this as an important form of content creation in your marketing strategy. This marketing strategy also allows brands to tap into the phenomenon of viral content. While not easy to achieve, it can have a dramatic impact on key marketing metrics and KPIs, such as website traffic and brand visibility.
Social media advertising is another component that should not be overlooked. For example, advertising on Facebook can drastically increase new customers. Want to try Facebook advertising for your business? Facebook Ads by Wix directly connects to your website to set up and optimize your campaigns. Remarketing on social media channels is a highly effective way to bring people back to your website to complete a purchase.
Popular social networks for promoting a business:
Our recommended reading to improve your social media strategy:
Read also: The art of cringe marketing
03. Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engines are filled with micro-moments. These are high intent instances when someone wants to learn, buy or do something. By optimizing your chances of ranking higher on search engines to show up at these instances, you're practicing search engine optimization SEO.
Search engine optimization (SEO) can be used as a core marketing strategy or a marketing tactic. In either case, a solid SEO strategy centers around making a brand’s content desirable, discoverable and accessible for web users via search engines like Google and Bing. Like inbound marketing, the most effective SEO strategies will include a great deal of audience research (typically with keyword research) and will be designed to ensure the brand has competitive visibility within the target audience.
SEO strategists tend to specialize in certain skills, such as technical SEO. Taking this approach can help brands to concentrate knowledge, utilize the most effective SEO tools, and best satisfy user intent.
Using SEO techniques, you'll direct the right kind of traffic to your site. People who find you through searches already arrive at your business website with intent. Driving traffic to your website isn't the only significant benefit. Bottom line sales also improve with SEO. In fact, 70% of online marketers say that "SEO is better than PPC advertising for generating sales."
To implement an SEO strategy, start by learning how to do keyword research the right way. After selecting which high intent keywords you're after, you can begin optimizing your content and improving your online presence to increase your search ranking and visibility.
04. Email marketing and newsletters
Recent studies show that 89% of marketers use email as the primary channel for generating leads. However, for email marketing campaigns to succeed, they need to deliver the right kind of message to your audience (no spammy "Buy now" emails). Good email marketing builds a relationship and acquires trust with readers.
You can still automate emails (check out marketing automation software) but remember to always add value. These newsletter examples show how all-sized companies can communicate uniquely and interestingly with subscribers. When you make a newsletter, conduct A/B tests to maximize performance.
When done correctly, your newsletter and email marketing strategy can create a strong ROI, improve customer retention and influence purchasing decisions.
Email marketing tips:
To build your email list, add a pop-up to your website to collect user information.
Share engaging content in your emails, such as blog posts, user-generated content and videos.
Personalize emails by adding information such as first names and customizing content based on how the user engaged with your site.
05. Influencer marketing
According to author and entrepreneur Seth Godin, "People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic. These wise words sum up the power of influencer marketing. As one of the quickest growing marketing strategies, influencer marketing uses real people to speak for your brand. Another side of it, is tapping into celebrity branding—using high profile influencers or online celebrities as part of your marketing efforts.
Influencers are individuals with high following or authority on a given topic or niche. This is one of the best marketing strategies because you get to expose your products and brand to a high follower reach without spending time building the audience. More than that, the influencer you've chosen to work with can use their authority to sway potential consumers to buy. Influencer marketing is not unlike word of mouth marketing or referral marketing.
According to Sarah Adam, head of marketing partnerships and influencer marketing for Wix Studio:
"Marketing is forever changing and to be competitive and stand out, you need to keep up with the industry changes. Tactics that worked last year are no longer recommended today. Influencer marketing is a great example of that. It is literally changing and growing by the day and that is the core nature of the industry."
The key is to find influencers that relate to your product and align with your brand values. Don’t be afraid to start with smaller partnerships with nano and micro-influencers. Interestingly enough, often their engagement rates and conversions are much higher than the ones with massive followers.
After reading these impressive stats below, you’ll further understand the lucrative power of a good influencer marketing strategy in helping your secure greater market penetration as part of a wider mass marketing strategy:
60% of marketers report better performance with influencer content vs. their own brand content.
Over 70% of marketers agree that the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other forms of marketing.
Influencer marketing yields between $5.20 to $6.50 for every one dollar spent.
06. Earned media and PR
After you've launched your business and website, it's time to spread the word. Gaining positive publicity and traction from media outlets will create the buzz around your business to get the attention of the masses. Business marketing strategies within this realm come in varying forms, including TV, newspapers, radio and podcasts.
Ideally, the press and publicity you acquire are organic (unpaid), but even if you’re considering working with a paid PR agency, the ROI can prove worthy. Bill Gates himself said, “If I only had two dollars left, I would spend one dollar on PR. It's an effective way to take your marketing communication to the next level.
07. Landing pages
What is a landing page? In simple terms—a marketer's best friend. This standalone page has one clear goal which is conversions.
No matter how successful your various online marketing strategies are, your landing pages and website must convert at a decent rate to make all the efforts worthwhile. Even just a one-second delay in page-load speed leads to a 7% drop in conversions.
Stay up to date with landing page best practices to increase your website conversion rate. By using Wix’s landing page builder, you’re already optimizing with best practices in mind. The landing page templates have customizable designs with CTA buttons placed strategically, built to be mobile-friendly, and critical information above the fold. Simply upload your images and change the text to fit your business.
08. Advertising
There are numerous types of advertising to consider for your business. From social media advertising to TV and print advertising, the options for advertising campaigns greatly vary. One thing is clear, online advertising is a powerful way to get your audience's attention. Its digital technology helps you better target, track and measure the results of your paid marketing investment.
Learning how to advertise on Google early on will significantly benefit your growth within digital advertising. Since Google is the largest search engine globally, you want to stay ahead of the competition and show up for strategic keywords related to your offerings with Google ads. Advertising on Google and many social media platforms is also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.
To choose the proper advertising methods for your business, consider:
Your audience
Costs and budget
Timing and length of your campaign
Creative assets available
09. Affiliate marketing
To answer the question, “What is affiliate marketing?” you can think of it as paid partnerships where others promote your brand for you. By creating an affiliate marketing program, you’re ultimately working with another affiliate that will distribute product promotions on their social media accounts, blog, or other platforms. Their sales get tracked with unique links called affiliate links, which allow the individual to get compensated based on performance.
This type of marketing is increasing in popularity, and more and more companies are rolling out their own affiliate programs. Due to this growth, today, 81% of advertisers include affiliate marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy.
10. Retargeting
Retargeting is a highly effective way to reach people who are already familiar with your brand and have expressed some level of interest in what you have to offer. It allows you to show ads to people who have already visited your website or shown interest in your products or services.
There are a few different ways to retarget people who have visited your website, from display and social media ads to email marketing, which can help you in the following ways:
Increase brand awareness. Make sure your brand is top of mind for people who have already visited your website. This can make them more likely to remember you when they are ready to make a purchase.
Generate leads. Showing ads to people who have visited your website and have done nothing else can encourage people to take the next step. Try offering free discounts or trials to give further incentives.
Drive sales. People who abandoned their shopping carts or visited your website but didn’t buy anything might just need a reminder, and you can make sure they get one.
Whichever platform you choose, just make sure you are tracking the results of your retargeting campaigns so that you can see what’s actually working.
11. AI marketing
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the world of marketing. AI-powered tools and technologies are being used to automate tasks, personalize experiences and target audiences more effectively. As a result, AI is becoming an essential part of any successful marketing strategy.
AI marketing is still in its early stages, but is rapidly growing in popularity. As AI technology continues to develop, it's likely that AI marketing will become even more important in the future. Here are some specific examples of how AI is being used in marketing today:
Chatbots: Chatbots are AI-powered software programs that can simulate conversation with human users. Chatbots are increasingly being used in marketing to provide customer support, answer questions, and generate leads.
Personalized recommendations: AI can be used to recommend products or services to customers based on their past purchase history, interests and online behavior. This is a powerful way to increase customer engagement and drive sales.
Targeted advertising: AI can be used to target ads to specific audiences based on their demographics, interests, and online behavior. This is a more effective way to reach target audiences and improve the return on investment (ROI) of advertising campaigns.
AI website maker: There are a number of AI-powered design tools available that can help businesses create websites more quickly and easily. These tools use AI to generate templates, layouts and even content for websites.
These are just a few examples of how AI is being used in marketing today. As AI technology continues to develop, we can expect to see even more innovative and effective ways to use AI in marketing in the future (such as AI marketing automation).
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Marketing strategies examples (and why we love them)
Wix: Content marketing with education in mind
If you haven't yet heard—we launched a podcast. Now What interviews leaders to discuss the future of business, design and eCommerce. The episodes are filled with helpful insights on succeeding as an entrepreneur as technology keeps changing.
Podcasting is a content marketing strategy that centers around the listener. On top of educating and informing with this content, Wix also turns some episodes into blog posts and shares them on social media. We saw how helpful it could be to have all types of content that listeners and readers can consume in the medium that best fits them. And most importantly its not just about promotion—it can inspire and teach something new. Podcasts and other forms of marketing content can also be used as part of your customer relationship management, as they allow you the ability to engage directly with your users or potential customers.
Berta: Social media marketing that keeps up with the trends
Bridal company Berta didn't earn its 2.9 million followers for nothing. Their highly engaging, humorous and trendy Instagram Reels and TikToks take over social media feeds. In one of their Instagram videos, they used a trending voice-over of the Kardashian family speaking. They styled each Kardashian voice with a different Berta dress to playfully showcase their dress line to each unique personality.
Their trendjacking marketing strategy is not only clever and entertaining, but it also displays products naturally. Berta makes themselves relatable and likable, while also positioning themselves as driven by innovation, through social media—something all brands can learn from.
Etsy: Email marketing campaigns that add value
Etsy, a platform known for its handmade gifts, understands how to use email marketing to showcase products while also benefiting the reader. The sharp yet level-headed subject line "Next-level gifting" grabs attention immediately. Opening the email with the following helpful advice:
"A few tips for nailing their gift: 1) Try a pick that's unexpected—but so perfect. 2) Celebrate your connection, whether it's a shared hobby, a sweet message, or an inside joke. 3) Add a personal detail to make it completely one of a kind."
The email grouped different products, such as jewelry, cozy gifts, heartfelt art and more. As a receiver, you're happy you got some thoughtful gift ideas from Etsy. Instead of spamming product links into an inbox, Etsy added value and tried to find ways their marketing could be helpful.
Blue Apron: Influencer marketing with a niche
As a meal prep business, you can only imagine how strategic it was for Blue Apron to partner with a top chef like Sam Kass. Kass reaches 20,000 followers that are likely all food lovers. Blue Apron's use of influencer marketing and personalization has boosted engagement by hosting a virtual cooking class with Kass, helping them foster brand trust. They stayed focused on their niche within the foodie world and used leaders aligned with their values to represent their brand. While a highly effective strategy on its own, mass marketing is not necessarily the right approach in every situation. Understanding your market share within a niche that is more likely to convert is more important sometimes than focusing on a wider market grab. In essence, strategic marketing is where it's at.
How to choose and create a marketing strategy in 5 steps
01. Define your goals
Data repeatedly shows that those who write down goals achieve more than those who don't. There are several ways to set your objectives, such as using the SMART Goals method, broader SWOT analysis. You might also need to run a marketing audit of your current strategies to see what's working, what's not and how this will impact your new marketing goals.
Your business goals might be to develop your brand awareness, break into a new geographic area, or increase online sales by a given percent. The more specific and numerical these goals are, the better they can be tracked, measured and replicated.
02. Identify your target audience
After you determine exactly whom your business wants to reach, it will be clearer which marketing strategies to choose. That's because the messaging and platforms you'll use need to fit your target audience and target market. Audience parameters can be tied to demographics like age, gender, geographic region, likes, interests, etc. They can also be enhanced with competitor analysis. Create different lightboxes or conduct market segmentation to assist you in the process.
03. Understand your customer’s pain points and your value proposition
To develop a marketing strategy that works, you must understand what your ideal consumer struggles with regularly. This awareness will align your product, place, price and promotion to solve their pain points and increase your chances of scalability. Once you’re confident in your value proposition, you’re ready to proceed.
04. Select your marketing channels and allocate budgets
Where does your audience spend the most time? Is it social media or reading publications and online magazines? Once you know where the people you want to be reaching are, you can best select the types of marketing you wish to implement in your strategies and the marketing channels to target. While niche marketing can be impactful, you can also consider the benefits of diversification in your marketing strategies—is offline marketing worth it for you, for example. Sometimes not putting all of your eggs in one basket is the better approach.
Likewise, choose which marketing tools will help you execute the campaigns. Allocating a specific budget for each channel and your KPIs is also important to do in this stage. Using a marketing plan template is a simple and effective way to document your process.
05. Decide on the messaging, creatives and implementation plan
The final step in your marketing strategy is working on your messaging and creative formats. For example, if you plan to educate customers on product capabilities and spend a lot of time on YouTube, you might create a video campaign. The video messaging will resonate with your target audience in a relevant and meaningful way.
How to track effective marketing strategies
Tracking your marketing strategies according to their set KPI's is essential for understanding how effective they have been and so you can optimize them as they run.
We've put together some of the main ways in which you can track your marketing strategies from planning to execution. The specific KPIs for each marketing strategy may vary, but in general they should all be tracked according to the following steps.
Set your goals and define what you want to achieve with your marketing strategies. Do you want to increase website traffic, generate leads, boost sales or improve brand awareness?
Choose the key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your goals. If one of your goals is to increase website traffic, then your KPIs or marketing metrics would be page views, bounce rate and time on site.
You should use always tracking tools in order to collect the specific data you need to understand how close you are to meeting your KPI's, or not. The exact tools you use will vary according to your goals and specific metrics but some popular examples include Google Search Console, tools that track social media analytics and email marketing software. Make sure to fully understand what it is your tracking before choosing the right analytics tool for you. Some tools can measure multiple KPIs, such as traffic sources, traffic numbers and more. You may need to check that you have the necessary tracking codes installed on your website and landing pages to monitor your campaign's success.
Once you've collected your data, you'll need to analyze it. First of make sure to regularly review and analyze the data collected from your tracking tools, either on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. This will help you identify what's working and what needs to be improved. It should also help you plan better future marketing strategies and campaigns.
Don't be afraid to adjust your strategies. Based on the insights gained from your data analytics, you'll most likely need to adjust or optimize your marketing strategies to improve them. One example of this is if your social media campaign is not generating the desired engagement, try experimenting with different content formats or posting times.
Monitor your strategies and their progress both over the short and long term. This should be a continuous process that involves reviewing your KPIs and metrics to ensure that you're on track to achieve your objectives.
What is a marketing strategist?
A marketing strategist is someone, generally referred to as a professional, who develops and implements marketing plans and campaigns to achieve a company's marketing and sales goals.
Their responsibilities include conducting market research, analyzing consumer behavior and market trends, and identifying target audiences. From this information, they create effective marketing strategies and tactics, including product positioning, pricing, promotion and distribution. The ultimate aim of a marketing strategist is to increase brand awareness and drive sales growth.
Marketing strategies FAQ
What are the main components of a good marketing strategy?
While the precise marketing strategy you choose will depend on your specific business, industry and marketing KPIs, the components of a good marketing strategy remain the same. These include clear goals and objectives, a well-defined target audience, a unique value proposition, a solid competitive analysis plan, a great marketing mix, a clear budget and metrics complete with a structured implementation plan.