Table of Contents

• What is marketing?
• What marketing isn’t?
• What is marketing strategy?
• Marketing Strategies vs. Marketing Plans
• Why is having a marketing strategy important?
• How to create a successful marketing strategy?
• 13 Types of Marketing Strategies

1. Brand Positioning Strategy
2. Public Relations Strategy
3. Product Marketing Strategy
4. Digital Marketing Strategy
5. Inbound Marketing Strategy
6. SEO Content Strategy
7. Content Marketing Strategy
8. Social Media Content Strategy
9. Email Marketing Strategy
10. Video Marketing Strategy
11. Internal Marketing Strategy
12. Editorial Strategy
13. Ecommerce Marketing Strategy

What is marketing?

Marketing is all about bringing potential clients to your business and connecting them with your products. It entails identifying the needs of the client, converting their wants into goods and services, packing and pricing those products and services, and then persuading them that they must purchase those products and services.

Simply defined, marketing includes the full cycle from locating new clients to meeting their requirements with the products that you create. Connecting with the customer is the key to successful marketing, which is more than just advertising and promotion. A variety of strategies are employed in marketing to spread the word about and advertise a product or service. It exists to draw in and motivate potential customers to act as well as make purchases. Marketing provides value to suit the needs of a target market and is based on creativity and innovation. In the end, it seeks to enhance a brand and raise revenue for a business.

What marketing isn’t?

Advertising, public relations, building a website, and email marketing are just a few examples of marketing. It also includes all of the advance planning done to benefit your clients and sales team. It should ideally serve as the company’s main motivator, guiding both your product development and distribution tactics.

What is marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy is the overall strategy of a business for connecting with potential customers and persuading them to purchase its products or services. A marketing plan typically includes the company’s value proposition, key brand messaging, details on the target market’s demographics, and other important components.

You can define the market positioning of your company. This includes the types of goods you produce, the partners you select as strategic alliances, and the forms of advertising and promotion you use as part of a marketing strategy. The direction of all your product and marketing-related activities is determined by your marketing strategy. Having a marketing strategy aids in keeping all of your activities on track.

In essence, a marketing strategy determines the general direction – but not the specific details – for a variety of marketing-related activities.

Marketing Strategies vs. Marketing Plans

The main difference between the two is that while your plan shows how you will carry out your strategy, your strategy outlines the “why” behind your efforts.

The purpose of a marketing strategy is to explain how your marketing objectives will help you accomplish your company objectives. The emphasis is on what service you will provide, who you will provide it to, how you will provide it, and who the competitors are. It enables you to get the most out of your investment, maintain the focus of your marketing, and help in the measurement of your sales results.

On the other hand, a marketing plan seeks to tactically organize your marketing campaign efforts. It emphasizes on your actions, including what you’ll do, where you’ll do it, when you’ll implement it, and how you’ll measure your progress. It serves as the action plan you’ll utilize to carry out your marketing efforts and supports your strategy.

Why is having a marketing strategy important?

Creating – and following – a marketing strategy is essential to setting the direction not just for your marketing-related activities but also for your entire business. Your marketing strategy helps you stay in sync with your customer base and develop the right products for them. Also, it determines how you communicate information about those products. – START FROM HERE

Without a defined strategy you won’t know who your customers are, you won’t develop the right products, and you’ll waste money promoting them.

In short, having a defined marketing plan makes you more successful. According to a CoSchedule survey, companies who have a documented marketing strategy are 313% more likely to be successful than those who don’t.

The ultimate goal of a marketing strategy is to achieve and communicate a sustainable competitive advantage over rival companies by understanding the needs and wants of its consumers. Whether it’s a print ad design, mass customization, or a social media campaign, a marketing asset can be judged based on how effectively it communicates a company’s core value proposition.

Market research can help chart the efficacy of a given campaign. It can also help identify untapped audiences to achieve bottom-line goals and increase sales.

How to create a successful marketing strategy?

There are several steps you need to take to create a robust marketing strategy for your business.

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
• Market trends
• Competitors
• Geographic and demographic characteristics
• Customer behavior

Focus on the 7 P’s

As you develop your marketing strategy, you should focus on the traditional 7 P’s 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.

Define your marketing mix

Finally, your marketing strategy should determine how you reach your target audience. Also, it involves 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.

13 Types of Marketing Strategies

No matter which type of strategy you plan and execute, they all follow the same basic principles:

Who are you trying to reach? These are your target customers or audiences you need to buy a product, make a donation, and persuade to support an idea, or take another action that supports your objectives.

Where will you try to reach them? These network and channel-specific strategies emphasize this area.

How will you inspire them to take action and buy from you? Your branding, channels, and tactics come into play here.

Which ways will you measure success? If you can’t measure it, then it didn’t happen. You must surely prove your strategy drives results.

Brand Positioning Strategy:

Brand positioning strategy refers to the process of establishing a distinct and desirable position for a brand in the minds of its target audience. This strategy involves identifying and highlighting the unique selling points, value proposition, and key attributes of the brand to differentiate it from competitors. It includes defining the target market, conducting market research, analyzing customer preferences, and crafting a compelling brand message that resonates with the target audience.

Public Relations Strategy:

A public relations strategy focuses on managing and influencing the perception and reputation of a company or brand among the public, media, stakeholders, and other key audiences. It involves building positive relationships, generating favorable media coverage, handling crisis situations, organizing events, and communicating key messages effectively. The goal is to enhance brand image, maintain a positive reputation, and establish trust and credibility with the target audience.

Product Marketing Strategy:

Product marketing strategy involves the planning and execution of activities to promote and sell a specific product or service. It includes market research, understanding customer needs and preferences, defining product features and benefits, identifying target markets, determining pricing and distribution strategies, and developing marketing campaigns to create awareness, generate demand, and drive sales. The strategy aims to position the product effectively, communicate its value proposition, and meet customer expectations.

Digital Marketing Strategy:

Digital marketing strategy encompasses various online marketing techniques and channels to reach and engage with the target audience. It involves utilizing digital platforms such as websites, search engines, social media, email marketing, content marketing, online advertising, and analytics. This helps to promote products or services, build brand awareness, drive website traffic, and generate leads or sales. The strategy typically includes setting specific goals, identifying target audience segments, selecting appropriate digital channels, and implementing tactics to achieve desired outcomes.

Inbound Marketing Strategy:

Inbound marketing strategy focuses on attracting and engaging potential customers by creating valuable content and experiences that align with their interests and needs. It involves tactics such as content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, and lead nurturing. The strategy aims to build trust, establish thought leadership, and guide customers through the buyer’s journey by providing relevant information and solutions, ultimately leading to customer acquisition and retention.

SEO Content Strategy:

SEO content strategy is centered around creating and optimizing content to improve a website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). It involves conducting keyword research, developing high-quality and relevant content, optimizing on-page elements (such as titles, headings, and meta tags), building backlinks, and monitoring performance through analytics. The strategy aims to increase organic search traffic, improve search engine rankings, and enhance the overall visibility and discoverability of the website.

Content Marketing Strategy:

Content marketing strategy focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a target audience. It involves identifying audience needs, developing a content plan, creating various types of content (such as blog posts, videos, infographics, and ebooks), distributing content through appropriate channels, and measuring its effectiveness. The strategy aims to build brand awareness, establish thought leadership, nurture customer relationships, and drive profitable customer action.

Social Media Content Strategy:

Social media content strategy involves planning and creating content specifically tailored for social media platforms to engage and interact with a target audience. It includes identifying social media channels relevant to the brand and audience, defining content themes and formats, establishing a consistent brand voice, scheduling content distribution, and monitoring engagement and performance metrics. The strategy aims to build brand loyalty, increase social media following, foster conversations, and drive traffic to other digital properties.

Email Marketing Strategy:

Email marketing strategy involves utilizing email as a communication channel to reach and engage with prospects and customers. It includes building an email list, segmenting the audience, creating personalized and targeted email campaigns, designing visually appealing templates, writing compelling copy, as well as measuring campaign performance. The strategy aims to nurture leads, drive conversions, build customer loyalty, and increase customer lifetime value through regular communication and relevant offers.

Video Marketing Strategy:

Video marketing strategy focuses on leveraging the power of video content to communicate messages, tell stories, and engage with the target audience. It involves planning and producing high-quality videos, optimizing videos for search engines and social media platforms, distributing videos through various channels (websites, social media, email, video sharing platforms), and measuring video performance and engagement metrics. The strategy aims to increase brand awareness, educate and entertain the audience, drive engagement, as well as influence purchasing decisions.

Internal Marketing Strategy:

Internal marketing strategy focuses on promoting and aligning the brand message, values, and culture within an organization to engage and motivate employees. It involves internal communication, training programs, employee recognition, and creating a positive work environment. The strategy aims to enhance employee satisfaction, foster a sense of belonging and loyalty, improve productivity, as well as ultimately deliver better customer experiences.

Editorial Strategy:

Editorial strategy refers to the planning and management of editorial content across various channels and platforms. It involves defining content themes, establishing content guidelines, setting publishing schedules, coordinating content creation and distribution, as well as ensuring consistency and quality. The strategy aims to deliver relevant and engaging content to the target audience, build brand authority, and meet business objectives.

Ecommerce Marketing Strategy:

Ecommerce marketing strategy focuses on driving traffic, increasing conversions, and maximizing sales for an online store or ecommerce platform. It involves various tactics such as search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertising, email marketing, social media marketing, conversion rate optimization, customer retention strategies, and analytics. The strategy aims to attract potential customers, optimize the user experience, build customer trust, and ultimately generate revenue and grow the ecommerce business.

At Auxost, we undoubtedly understand the importance of a solid marketing strategy in driving business success. By delving into the core concepts of marketing and highlighting the significance of a well-defined strategy, we hope to empower businesses like yours to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

Remember, a successful marketing strategy is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It requires careful consideration of your unique business goals, target audience, and industry dynamics. As a marketing company, we are surely here to guide you through the process, offering tailored strategies that align with your objectives and help you achieve tangible results!