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Published: Jun 26, 2024
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6 min. read
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Abbey StephanLead Editor
- Abbey is a digital marketer, copywriter, and lead editor. She has worked on over 200 client campaigns and WebFX, and she specializes in marketing strategy analysis and industry-specific digital marketing plans. Outside of writing and editing, you’ll likely find her taking pictures of her cat, making a new playlist, or tending to her houseplants.

What Is a Marketing Strategy?
A marketing strategy is a long-term plan that outlines how a business will reach prospects and convert them into customers.
Every business needs a marketing strategy to promote its products or services. This game plan allows you to explore your goals, branding, and audience in depth to find new prospects.
But what is a marketing strategy exactly? And how does it grow your business?
If you need help getting started with your strategy, we’re here to help. This post will break down the following topics related to marketing strategies:
- What is a marketing strategy?
- Why do you need a marketing strategy?
- How to create a marketing strategy
Dive into our helpful guide below! And, if you want to learn more about digital marketing, sign up for our newsletter today!
What is a marketing strategy?
A marketing strategy refers to a company’s plan to turn leads into prospective customers.
A marketing strategy tends to have the following characteristics:
- Long-term goals and objectives
- A plan to guide a company to meet its mission
- Steps to ensure marketing efforts support business objectives
- Informational parts that explain what the plan is and how it will work
Why do you need a marketing strategy?
While the ultimate goal of a marketing strategy is to generate sales, it also helps to create brand awareness and nurture customer relationships. Your marketing strategy gives your business a persona, so customers feel like they know you, even before they purchase.
A marketing strategy also helps you understand your customers’ needs and better communicate your offering to them. If you don’t know your audience, you can’t explain why they need your product or service.
It is also important for your marketing department to have a clear direction. To stay consistent and adapt to new challenges, you need a strategy that guides your marketing and sales teams toward common goals. This process will give you the best chance at converting your leads.
How to create a marketing strategy
Now that you know what a marketing strategy is and why it matters, it’s time to start brainstorming. If you need to create a marketing strategy, you can do so using these eight simple steps:

How To Create a Marketing Strategy
1. Define your goals
Your marketing strategy must support your business goals, so defining and understanding your company goals is essential. While increasing your sales may be your ultimate goal, you should include other smaller goals. Consider the following:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Increasing market share
- Deepening customer relationships
- Beating the competition
An effective marketing strategy contains the four P’s — price, promotion, place, and product. Your marketing strategy should marry your company goals and marketing objectives to provide strategic direction for your campaigns.
When you know what your company wants to achieve, you can pivot your marketing strategy to meet your goals.
2. Identify your target market
Before selling your product or service to customers, you need to understand your target audience and market. Doing this will help you gain valuable insight into how to promote your business to your ideal customer. Understanding your target audience will also give you insight into profitability and your business’s earning potential.
When doing your research, include the following aspects:
- Competitors
- Target market size
- Political factors
- Economic factors
The number of market competitors will determine how creative your marketing activities need to be. Political and economic factors, such as legislation changes, can significantly impact how you can promote your business to your target market.
3. Create buyer personas
Once you have your goals and know your target audience, you can create buyer personas or ideal customer profiles. These personas or profiles are internal tools your marketing team can use to emphasize your target audience. Include details such as demographics, interests, and pain points.
You can also have multiple personas and profiles — many companies sell to various customers.
4. Draft your USP
Your unique selling proposition outlines why customers should choose your product or service over your competitors. Your USP must also include the key benefits of your product. Consider the following questions:
- What makes your product or service unique?
- Why should customers pick you?
- What makes you better than your competitors?
List all of your products or services along with their benefits. Your marketing team can then use these to create compelling ad copy and other messaging to compel leads to become customers.
5. Craft your messaging
Once you have your USP, you can begin to craft brand-approved messaging. Think about how you want to position your business in the market. This messaging is an opportunity to tell your target audience how your product will solve their pain points:
Writing down your messaging will ensure consistency in your branding and marketing campaigns.
6. Determine your budget
Your marketing budget determines what activities you can do on which channels. Do you plan on purchasing advertising space, or will you mainly market on social media? Think about what you can afford to spend before picking your channels.
Read: How to Plan a Marketing Budget
7. Choose your channels
Next, you must pick channels and tactics to advertise your business. Be sure to choose platforms that your audience uses but are also within your budget. Consider the following channels:
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
- Email marketing
- Content marketing, such as blogs and videos
Once you know what marketing platforms you want to use, you can select tactics for your channels.
8. Measure success
Every marketing strategy needs KPIs and acceptable benchmarks to track. These metrics must relate to your business goals. For example, you’ll need to track your conversion rates if your goal is to convert leads into customers.
You can track other metrics such as:
- Churn rate
- Views and clicks
- Subscribers
- Comments and shares
- SEO ranking
- Followers
- Click-through rate
You must regularly assess your progress to ensure you meet your goals. Tools like MarketingCloudFX make tracking your marketing data easier than ever.
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A marketing strategy is essential to help your business meet its goals. It helps to steer you in the right direction and carry out marketing efforts to reach your target audience. Whether you aim to increase sales, grow brand awareness, or deepen your customer relationships, a marketing strategy will keep you on the right track.
At WebFX, we’re here to help propel your business to meet its marketing goals. Our expert marketers help business owners like you develop a strategy that enables them to stand out from their competition and win over customers. Ready to create your marketing strategy? Get started by contacting us today!
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Abbey is a digital marketer, copywriter, and lead editor. She has worked on over 200 client campaigns and WebFX, and she specializes in marketing strategy analysis and industry-specific digital marketing plans. Outside of writing and editing, you’ll likely find her taking pictures of her cat, making a new playlist, or tending to her houseplants.
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Table of Contents
- What is a Marketing Strategy?
- Why Do You Need a Marketing Strategy?
- How to Create a Marketing Strategy
- 1. Define Your Goals
- 2. Identify Your Target Market
- 3. Create Buyer Personas
- 4. Draft Your USP
- 5. Craft Your Messaging
- 6. Determine Your Budget
- 7. Choose Your Channels
- 8. Measure Success
- Build Your Online Marketing Strategy with WebFX!

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Craft a tailored online marketing strategy! Utilize our free Internet marketing calculator for a custom plan based on your location, reach, timeframe, and budget.
Plan Your Marketing Budget