Marketing strategy – how to build one step by step

A marketing strategy is a long-term plan for how a business wins and keeps customers: who it sells to, what it offers and why people should choose it, which channels reach them, how much it spends and how it measures results. It pays off for any business that invests in marketing and wants to know what comes back.

The process in brief:

1. 1Research your market, customers and competitors.
2. 2Choose the target audience you want to focus on.
3. 3Set measurable marketing objectives (SMART).
4. 4Define your positioning and value proposition.
5. 5Set your marketing mix and choose your channels.
6. 6Set a budget, including money for testing.
7. 7Build a marketing calendar and track results against KPIs.

Marketing strategy vs marketing plan vs campaign

A marketing strategy answers “where to and why”. It is not a list of activities but a set of decisions: which customers to focus on, how to stand out and where to put the money. It follows from your business strategy.

The table shows the difference using a fictional café:

The strategy changes rarely, the plan regularly, and campaigns come and go.

How to build a marketing strategy step by step

1. Market research

Market research does not have to be an expensive study. Three sources are enough:

• Customers: 5–10 short conversations: why they bought, what else they considered and what nearly put them off.
• Your own data: sales by product and month, website enquiries, Google Analytics and Search Console.
• Competitors: 3–5 businesses customers compare you with: offer, prices, website, reviews, ads.

The result should answer three questions: who buys most, what drives the decision and which gap competitors leave open.

2. Target audience

Targeted marketing means choosing one to three customer groups and tailoring your offer and messaging to them. Describe them specifically: who they are, what problem they are solving, where they look for information and what drives their choice. Narrowing down saves budget otherwise spread across people who would never buy.

3. Marketing objectives and communication objectives

Marketing objectives follow from business goals: revenue, new customers, average order value, repeat purchases. Marketing communication objectives sit one level below: how many people should know you, how many enquiries the website should bring, how many people should join your newsletter.

The SMART method helps formulate them. George T. Doran described it in Management Review in 1981 (in his version, A stood for “assignable”, meaning someone is responsible). Today it is usually read as:

• Specific: what exactly you want to change.
• Measurable: which number will show it.
• Achievable: realistic with your budget and capacity.
• Relevant: it contributes to a business goal.
• Time-bound: by when.

Example: instead of “we want more customers”, write “by the end of June, get 40 enquiries a month from the website at under €16 per enquiry”.

4. Positioning and value proposition

Positioning is the place you want to hold in the customer’s mind compared with competitors. A value proposition turns it into one sentence: who your offer is for, what problem it solves and why it beats the alternatives.

A simple template: “We help [whom] [achieve what] through [what], unlike [alternative].” If you cannot complete it without generic words like quality or professionalism, your strategy is not finished yet.

5. Marketing mix

The marketing mix turns strategy into decisions about product, price, place and promotion (the 4Ps), or 7Ps for services; see our article on the marketing mix: 4Ps and 7Ps. All parts must point the same way: a premium price does not fit a cheap-looking presentation or constant discounts.

6. Channels: your digital marketing strategy

Your digital marketing strategy decides which online channels carry your objectives and what role each plays in the customer journey described by the marketing funnel.

• SEO: long-term traffic from people actively searching; results take months. See our SEO services.
• PPC (Google Ads, Meta Ads): fast results and precise measurement, but only while you pay.
• Email: the cheapest route to repeat sales from people who know you; see our email marketing guide.
• Social media: awareness and relationships, in some sectors direct sales; see our social media marketing guide.

For a small business, two channels done properly and measured usually beat five done halfway.

7. Budget

Set the budget as a fixed amount per period and allocate it by objective, not by habit:

1. 1Work out how much you can pay to acquire a customer: the margin from an order (or the whole relationship) minus a buffer.
2. 2From your objective, for example 20 new customers a month, derive the amount you need.
3. 3Put most of it into channels that demonstrably work and reserve a smaller share to test a new channel or message.
4. 4After each period, shift money to where the return is best.

8. Marketing calendar

A marketing calendar puts the strategy on a timeline: your sector’s seasons, holidays, planned campaigns, regular content and review dates. A shared spreadsheet is enough, but every item needs an owner and a deadline. Example: a fictional coffee e-shop plans gift sets for November and December, an email in January to its Christmas customers and an iced coffee campaign for summer.

9. Measurement and KPIs

Every objective needs one main KPI. For a small business, that is typically the number of enquiries or orders, cost per acquisition, website conversion rate, revenue by channel and share of returning customers. Set up tracking before your first campaign, otherwise you have nothing to compare with.

One-page marketing plan template

A marketing plan is your strategy written down for a specific period. Fill in this table; any row you cannot answer shows what to work on.

Marketing communication: tools and integration

Marketing communication covers what you say about yourself and how. The textbook Principles of Marketing by Kotler and Armstrong lists five major promotion tools:

• Advertising: paid messages in the media, today mostly online.
• Sales promotion: short-term incentives such as discounts or samples.
• Public relations: relationships with the public and the media.
• Personal selling: direct contact between a salesperson and a customer.
• Direct marketing: reaching customers directly, today mostly by email and online.

Integrated marketing communications means all tools say the same thing and build on each other: the ad promises what the website explains and the salesperson confirms. A related choice is push (moving the product through sales staff and partners) versus pull (creating demand among end customers); most businesses combine both.

Marketing strategy frameworks

Three established frameworks help you choose a direction:

• Ansoff matrix (H. Igor Ansoff, Harvard Business Review, 1957) distinguishes four growth strategies: market penetration, market development, product development and diversification. The further from your current product and market, the higher the risk.
• Blue ocean strategy (W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne) looks for new market space where competition becomes irrelevant instead of fighting over existing demand in a “red ocean”, pursuing differentiation and low cost at the same time.
• Go-to-market strategy is, according to Gartner, a plan detailing how an organisation engages customers, convinces them to buy and gains a competitive advantage. It fits a product launch or entry into a new market.

Common mistakes small businesses make

• Channels without measurement. The business pays for ads but doesn’t know how many enquiries they bring, so it cannot shift budget.
• Copying competitors. What works for a business with a different budget, margins and customers may not work for you.
• No budget for testing. Everything goes into one channel and no one knows whether another would be cheaper.
• A strategy in a drawer. The document is written once and no one decides by it.

When to bring in a specialist

A business owner can put together a basic marketing strategy using this outline. A marketing strategist or agency pays off when ad spend is growing and you don’t know what comes back, when you are entering a new market or launching a product, or when you lack capacity to run channels. At WebOptim, we connect strategy with execution: we set up tracking, run PPC campaigns and SEO, and shift budget based on results. You can describe your situation via our contact form.