marketing strategy phases

Hopefully, last week’s blog post about why you need a marketing strategy has you totally inspired to create a marketing strategy for your business. If you missed it, you can check it out here.

But if I try to summarise it in one sentence it would be this: It simplifies everything!

Sound good? Yes? Great!

If you now recognise you need a strategy but don’t know where to start, I have a great freebie for you: The Online Marketing Starter Kit

As part of this freebie, I give you the exact step by step guide to creating a marketing strategy that works for you. These steps are divided into 4 key phases that every business should go through.

Here’s a bit of a sneak peek into each of those marketing strategy phases and why each is so important.

marketing strategy phases #1: clarity

BEFORE you do anything else you need to get really clear on Who you serve, how you serve them and how you can stand out from the crowd.

This comes before everything else because everything will stem from this foundation.

For every tactic you choose, you need to know that your Target Market is there.

For every message you put out there, you need to make sure that it is consistent and leading to one goal.

For everything you do, you need to make sure that you are leveraging the best of your personal strengths and points of differentiation.

You need to be singing off the same songsheet, constantly.

If you don’t get clear on this right from the beginning, you will just end up confusing your audience – and yourself.

That would be like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Instead, the whole process becomes SIMPLIFIED and much much more EFFECTIVE by going through this phase first.

If you have skipped this though, don’t worry, it is something you can always come back to. In fact, it is something that is constantly evolving as we learn more about our audience and they learn about us. Not to mention what we learn about ourselves along the way.

marketing strategy phases #2: sales strategy

Now you are clear on how you will position yourself in the market, it’s time to put some baseline sales strategy in place.

This is all about identifying where your ideal audience member is starting from, where they need to be to buy from you and then implementing the steps along the way for them to take that journey.

This generally involves ensuring you have a website built for conversion and an email strategy that answers their pressing concerns and nurtures them through to sale.

Once again, this is important to have in place before you go out and start any major promotions, because without these steps in place you might find yourself getting a lot of people clicking through to your site but not converting well.

You want to ensure that every ounce of effort you put into getting people to hear about your business will have the highest chance of success at that sale as possible.

marketing strategy phases #3: visibility

This is where the fun really begins.

You know what makes your audience tick. You know what appeals to them.

You have a sales journey to take them on that involves more than just a link to a product page.

Now it’s time to be seen.

The choices of ways to do this seem endless. And everyone will have their own opinion on what you should do.

And truth be told there is no one right answer.

I personally recommend using a mix of content, one primary social media channel and one or two promotional tactics.

But what you do within each of those areas is totally dependent on you and your business.

What you are good at and what you enjoy doing.

Who your target audience is and where they hang out.

What your business does and if you need to build a lot of trust first or have something that is a bit quicker to sell.

What has worked in the past.

This is why I am not a fan of those threads in Facebook Groups. People don’t know your story, so unless you provide all this information there is no true way to know.

They can give you ideas of things you can look at, but in the end you need to choose the right mix for you.

marketing strategy phases #4: optimise

Now you have a strategy in place, it is all about continuous improvement.

Unfortunately, this is not a set & forget type thing.

The market changes.

Your audience changes.

You change.

So your business needs to roll with these changes.

Make sure you are keeping track of the key numbers and testing to see what works.

Make some tweeks. Conduct some experiments.

The best thing about having gone through all the previous steps is that you have something to keep track of. If something isn’t going like planned it is infinitely easier to spot where the sales are dropping off if you have a clear strategy in place.

If you have just been throwing everything at it, it is extremely difficult to spot where things are going wrong. Not to mention you are likely to start burning out.

final thoughts

By following these marketing strategy phases and the more detailed steps in The Online Marketing Starter Kit you will feel more confident and equipped to tackle the marketing beast.

No more vague questions in Facebook groups. No more succumbing to shiny objects. No more FOMO. No more burnout.

Just more ease-filled business growth.

Sounds good right?