4 Steps for Building a Solid Marketing Strategy

Creating a successful marketing plan is like building a house. It takes a lot of preparation. You research neighborhoods. You choose a floor plan. You may even vet contractors and approve a schedule — all before any ground is broken. The point is: It’s a big investment, so you do your homework because you want it to serve you well.

So, how do you create that solid foundation for a marketing plan that gets results? We’ve developed a four-step strategic planning process that has helped many of our clients create a roadmap for their marketing decisions. It’s scalable, it’s flexible and it’s a powerful tool to unlock growth with intentional, targeted action. However, before we dig in, let’s establish what this process is and what it’s not.

Strategic marketing planning is different from a marketing plan.

Strategic planning is a process. It’s the upfront work you do to get key stakeholders on the same page about your business objectives, your audiences, your competitors and your brand. Your marketing plan is the product of this process. Everything in your plan should ladder up to the strategy.

As you plan your marketing strategy, try to keep it audience-focused, data-driven, specific and measurable, and flexible enough to pivot if needed. It should not be a short-term fix, based on gut reactions, tactically driven or set in stone.

When is the best time to do it?

Many companies do their strategic marketing planning annually, in preparation for the coming year. Other times when it might make sense to review your marketing strategy include when:

• You’re launching a new brand or product
• You haven’t reviewed your brand or position in a while
• Your industry or competitive landscape has changed
• Your customer growth and retention is stagnant or falling
• You see an opportunity to expand or pivot within your channel or industry

With this in mind, let’s walk through our basic four-step process.

Step 1: Discover + Define

Start by auditing what you know and researching what you don’t. Mapping out your business objectives, competitive landscape, audience and brand differentiators will help you understand where your opportunities are. Activities and audits in this step include:

• Business goals: One-, three- and five-year roadmap
• Brand review: Mission, vision, values and positioning
• Industry landscape: Top competitors and core messaging
• Audiences, influencers and purchase process: Research, interviews/surveys with customers, prospects and internal sales team
• Current marketing plan: What’s working well/what needs to be adjusted?
• Marketing goals: Where do you need to move the needle, and how will you measure it?

Based on the information you gather, potential outputs could include:

• A SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
• Audience personas and journeys: Map out their pain points, goals and motivators
• Buyer profile and buyer insight: What makes your ideal customer take action and buy?
• Competitive positioning: Is your brand clearly differentiated from the competition?
• Brand positioning: Your brand essence, positioning statement, value proposition and reasons to believe
• Key messages: Helps focus creative development in step 3

Step 2: Strategize + Plan

This is where the rubber meets the road. We take what we’ve learned in step 1 and build out the framework to maximize engagement. At this point in the process, we:

• Review marketing goals, constraints and commitments
• Create audience and channel strategies
• Recommend marketing tactics that support strategies
• Set timing, budgets and performance metrics

The output from this step is a marketing communications playbook, including detailed strategies by audience and channel, as well as media and content calendars with high-level tactics, budgets and timing. We also create a holistic customer experience map including all audience touchpoints to see how all the efforts connect to maximize engagement.

At this stage, you might consider implementing a marketing automation system to help streamline and optimize parts of the customer journey. This could include lead nurturing and conversion, as well as segmenting audiences for highly targeted and personalized email campaigns.

Step 3: Create + Activate

All the insights and planning from steps 1 and 2 will then be used to inform your creative and bring your brand to life. Based on what you know and have learned, it may be time to create new materials or update existing pieces. This could include:

• Internal communications
• Collateral materials
• Sales tools
• Paid/earned/owned media campaigns
• Social media strategy
• Influencer marketing opportunities
• Digital, direct or content marketing
• Trade show/conference support

Brand guidelines are another consideration at this stage. To build brand recognition and loyalty, consistency is key. From color palettes and typefaces to your unique voice and tone, brand guidelines help keep your team aligned. If you don’t have established brand guidelines (or it’s been a while since they were created), this is the perfect time to create or update them.

We also recommend taking professional photography of your products, your facilities and your employees. This will help capture who you are and further differentiate your brand from others in the market.

Step 4: Measure + Optimize

After launching your marketing plan, we recommend analyzing how it’s working on a monthly or quarterly basis — because strategic marketing planning is an ongoing cycle. For some clients, we utilize a dashboard that pulls in data from multiple marketing activities so we can evaluate how they’re performing, both individually and together. We report those insights to our clients, along with recommendations to optimize based on their business goals.

Final thoughts: Why strategic marketing planning is worth it

This four-step process can require a significant effort — but here’s how it can pay off:

• New industry learning. Better understand industry trends, your competitors and your audience.
• Differentiated message. Strengthen your brand positioning with a fresh creative approach and messages.
• Proactive vs. reactive. Stay ahead of the competition, operate efficiently and improve ROI.
• Clear marketing priorities. Focus your efforts with a documented SWOT analysis.
• A playbook for success. Create a plan that serves your goals and connects in new, powerful ways.

Consider this: Surveys show marketers are up to 414% more likely to report success when they have a documented strategy. It’s a proactive way to set your business up for the future with marketing that solves your business problems and helps you reach your goals while increasing your return on investment.

Wondering if this is the right time to do strategic marketing planning? Download this one-page PDF reference. Or, if you’re ready to get started, contact us to explore how we can support you by facilitating or leading this process.

The Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) Business Monthly interviewed Director of Account Service Tiffany Hamil about strategic marketing planning for the publication’s September 2024 issue. Download the Q&A now. Hamil and Anthologic Chief Solutions Officer Jeff Regenold presented “The Power of Strategic Marketing: From Insights to Impact” at the 2024 ABI Taking Care of Business Conference in Davenport.