Would an Olympic diver jump into a body of water without first accessing their surroundings and, most importantly, deciding how they plan to hit the water? Of course not! At least, not if they want to protect themselves and their career.       

Although not physically dangerous, diving straight into marketing tactics without a clear strategy is careless. Proceeding without a plan can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities. In the business world, this can lead to significant losses.

Another way to think of marketing strategy is as a roadmap (or a GPS for those of you who’ve never known the struggle of refolding a paper map in a way that will allow it to fit back into your glove box). A good strategy will guide your decisions at each intersection, ensuring you stay the course. It will keep all your moves aligned with your overall business goals so you can stay on route to reach your destination.

Sometimes, planning, packing, and getting out the door are the most difficult parts of a road trip. Even when you know that prioritizing strategy is what you’d like to do, it’s hard to figure out the first step you need to take. If this is your current perspective, you’ve come to the right guide! 

Decide on Your Final Destination

A good strategy starts by defining clear goals and objectives. Data covering various circumstances consistently shows that deliberately setting goals results in much higher success rates. One psychology study reports that 76% of participants who wrote down their objectives and provided weekly progress updates successfully achieved their goals – over 33% higher than their peers who did not keep a written record of their efforts.

This is why goals are a foundational element of marketing strategy. They determine what you are trying to achieve long-term and serve as landmarks to help you assess the progress you’re making along the way. Also, they ensure that each campaign and tactic aligns with the overarching business vision.  

Optimize Resources

Defining your strategic goals enables you to allocate resources more effectively. This includes people, time, and money. PMI survey results report that less than 60% of projects meet the original budget and barely 50% of them are being completed on time. You don’t want to be in that boat! This is why proper resource optimization is so important. When each marketing activity contributes to the broader strategy it benefits your whole company, especially your bottom line. Here’s how:

• Assigning team members tasks that are appropriate for their roles increases productivity.  
• Prioritizing the tasks that align with your strategic goals improves time management.
• Allocating funds to the most impactful areas ensures efficient use of your budget.

Target the Right Audience

One piece of advice we’ll never stop sharing is that identifying your ideal customer is an essential strategy for successful marketing. Defining who you are trying to reach helps you tailor your efforts to engage those individuals specifically. Also, research the demographics and psychographics of your ideal customer to understand them. This research will help you craft messages that resonate with your target audience and discover which channels these individuals are most likely to see your messages on. 

Analyze & Adapt

A well-defined strategy includes metrics for measuring success. This allows you to track progress and make necessary adjustments to stay on course. Setting benchmarks in the form of KPIs helps you gauge the effectiveness of your efforts.

What on earth is a KPI? The acronym stands for Key Performance Indicator. Forbes defines a KPI as, “a measurable target that indicates how individuals or businesses are performing in terms of meeting their goals.” Examples of marketing KPIs include:

• Monthly website traffic
• Page likes and comments
• Social media engagement rates
• Number of new monthly leads
• Click-through rate percentage

Setting your KPIs in your initial campaign strategy is important because it allows you to make data-driven changes to tactics based on performance. In modern marketing, agility is crucial to success. You must continuously refine and improve to achieve better results over time.

How do all these tips work together and prove that strategy should be in place before implementing tactics for your marketing to reach its full potential? Let’s discuss a hypothetical example. Consider a small manufacturing company specializing in producing components for OEMs. Without a clear marketing strategy, their efforts on social media, email campaigns, and advertisements might be scattered and ineffective. However, by setting a strategy they:

• Identify their goal of increasing leads by 20% in a year.
• Allocate the budget towards targeted LinkedIn ads, knowing their B2B clients are active there.
• Create tailored content that addresses the pain points of their target audience.
• Track performance using KPIs like lead conversion rates and adjust their approach as needed.

It’s undeniable that marketing strategy is the cornerstone of effective marketing. It ensures that every tactic is purposeful and aligned with your big picture. Set clear goals, optimize your resources, target your ideal customer, and track KPIs to create impactful marketing campaigns that drive growth and success. Creating a marketing strategy before implementing tactics streamlines efforts and provides you with a clear path. If you need a strategy roadmap to help you navigate your marketing journey effectively, schedule a call with the Hydrate Marketing team and we’ll get you headed in the right direction!