How to Create a Marketing Strategy

There are always lots of surprises that pop up when you are running a small business. From new expenses that balloon your budget to problems that slow your timeline (just to name a few), having unexpected things fall into your lap when you're least expecting them is just kind of the name of the game.

And speaking of surprises… if we had to make an educated guess, we’d say that the moment you found out you needed something called a "marketing strategy" was a pretty major surprise—one that made you have a million and one questions about how to actually get it done.

So today, we wanted to take the edge off of this important to-do by answering your questions about how to create a marketing strategy for your small business.

Keep reading to find out:

What is a marketing strategy?
What goes into a marketing strategy
Why most small business marketing strategies fail
What a successful marketing strategy looks like
How to create a marketing strategy (step-by-step)

First off, what is a marketing strategy?

Just because you found out you need a marketing strategy doesn't mean you know what one even is—and that's okay! We know you started your small business because you have a special skill or product you wanted to share with people—not because you were jazzed about setting business strategies and running operations.

So first, don't be intimidated by the word "strategy." It might feel like an allusive buzzword but the truth is that a marketing strategy is just a documented plan that outlines what you're going to do in order to put your business in front of customers and work toward achieving your goals (which is probably to make a bunch of money!).

A marketing strategy is an important part of your overall business planning because it helps you make sure that the time and money you allocate to marketing is going to actually move the needle for your biz (read: not just be wasted).

What goes into a marketing strategy?

Now that we know what it is, what do you need to put in it? A marketing strategy is made up of a few main pieces—goals, objectives, information about your customers, and the channels you plan to use for marketing. Let's break each one down a little more:

Goals: These are the overall goals you have for your business that are influenced by marketing—think things like increasing sales or becoming more recognizable in your market or industry.
Objectives: These are the more direct, tangible, or measurable goals you have that let you know whether you're on track with your goals or not. An example is something like increasing website traffic in the next 6 months.
Information about your customers: Knowing who you're targeting (or talking to) with your marketing is key to creating a successful strategy. This includes gathering information on demographics, the problems your ideal customers or clients tend to have as well as the solution you have to get them what they need.
Marketing channels: Where do you plan on marketing your business to reach your customers? These can range from social media platforms like Instagram to email marketing or things like advertising and merchandising.

Why most marketing strategies fail

Now let’s talk about why, despite marketing strategies being relatively simple, most fail. We don’t mean to get negative, but it’s important to know why so you can keep these pitfalls in mind. Plus, we will show you how easy it is to avoid them so that you can start creating a much better marketing strategy.

You’re unrealistic about the time you have

This is probably the biggest reason marketing strategies fail. Let’s face it, as a small business owner you have little to no time. But that’s ok! Most Enji users have just 1-2 hours per week to spend on their marketing and you know what? It can make a huge difference. It’s way better than 0 hours, which ultimately happens when you put too much on your plate and get overwhelmed.

You don’t know where your customers are

Sometimes it’s fun to throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and see where it sticks. In business, there’s a lot that can come out of taking risks. But, you need to know when it’s appropriate to take risks, and that doesn’t include guessing about where your customers are.

For instance, if you’re marketing on Facebook to Gen Z, you’re already wasting your time. Your cute Etsy biz on Linkedin? Also probably not going to land.

If you aren’t sure where your people are, that’s a good sign you need to do a little more marketing research. Head to this post where we walk you through what customer research looks like.

You aren’t consistent

Oof, another marketing strategy fail. Posting here and there might feel like all you can do when you don’t have enough time, but it’s wasting more time than you think. When you don’t post enough, social media algorithms won’t give you as much reach, and for the people who do see your posts, they don’t have enough context to make a connection with your brand.

By creating a content calendar that works for your workload and batch-creating consistent content, you can work up to the results you need to even determine if your content is working in the first place.

You don’t give things enough time

Last on the list of common marketing strategy problems? Is that you don’t give yourself enough time. And we get it—once you start creating content and publishing, it feels like you should have clients knocking down your door! After all that work, it’s normal to want a little bit of instant gratification. But unfortunately, most marketing takes at least a little time.

As a rule of thumb, we say to expect to see results in the next quarter (so the work you do in the next three months? You’ll see them in months 4-6). Keep going!

An example of a successful marketing strategy

To tie it all together, you’re probably wondering what a successful marketing strategy really looks like.

Well Meet Sarah, a wedding photographer! She wants to increase her bookings to five weddings per month, specifically with couples who are looking for candid, romantic photography. To do that, she plans to increase her number of leads by 30% in three months, using Instagram, SEO blogging, and email marketing.

To break it down further, here’s an outline of the marketing strategy:

Goal: Book 5 weddings per month.
Objective: Grow the number of leads by 30% in 3 months.
Ideal Customer: Couples looking for candid, romantic photography.
Marketing Channels: Instagram, Blogging/SEO, and email marketing.

To execute this strategy, Sarah plans to post three Instagram posts per week, one blog post per month optimized for SEO, and send a monthly email newsletter with wedding tips.

See? Not as overwhelming when you see it all written out! With a solid plan and execution strategy, Sarah has something to work toward and measure, so she can check whether her efforts are working.

How do you create a marketing strategy?

Now that we've taken a lot of the surprise out of things, let's talk about how to create a marketing strategy! This is where people get tripped up, and whether that's because they're overthinking things or don't know where to start, it's not nearly as complicated as some people may make you think.

Here are the straightforward steps we like to take (and know you are totally capable of too)!

1. Think about your business and your goals

Start by sitting down and taking the time to define your goals and objectives. You might want to think about how people purchase from you, where most of your clients come from, and where people tend to fall off before actually making a sale.

Answering these questions will help you determine what you need to work on. And, these are what will help you make future decisions about what to do and not within your marketing strategy.

2. Think about your ideal customers and clients

Your ideal clients are ultimately the ones who are easiest to sell to and best to work with (you know who they are!). That’s it!

This is an important step because you should be building a brand that connects with them, offering services that are what they need, creating content that speaks to them, marketing your business in the places they "hang out," and communicating to them in ways they find fun.

Think about what social media platforms they use, what brands they love, and what content they like to interact with online. We recommend putting together customer personas that you can refer to in order to make your marketing strategy as successful as possible.

3. Pick your marketing channels and time commitment

Next, it’s time to pick the marketing channels that you want to focus on based on your goals and where you can find your ideal customer. Don’t go too crazy here—two to three channels is plenty.

Once you have your channels, it’s time to think about your time commitment. How often can you be active on each one? Consider some best practices for each—for instance, you can get away with one to two blogs per month, but if you’re focusing on a platform like TikTok, you’ll probably need to post multiple times per week to keep up your momentum.

Every little bit counts, so don’t worry if you feel like you can barely scratch the surface! Once your marketing starts to work and your business grows (which it will), you can worry about how to increase your marketing efforts.

4. Document your plan

Say it with me: doing things on the fly is not a strategy!

The best way to make sure you're staying on top of your marketing tasks and spending your time on things that aren't a waste is to have them written down and organized somewhere you can refer back to at any time. This helps you stay consistent (more on this in a sec), and stay on track with your plan.

Lucky for you, that's exactly what we do here at Enji! You can get a marketing strategy that is customized to your business in minutes when you start a free trial and complete a simple questionnaire—we've got you from there!

5. Test and evaluate your strategy

Remember when we mentioned how marketing is an experiment? Once you put your marketing strategy into action, you need to see what’s working and what isn’t.

That means you should start tracking KPIs (key performance indicators) so you can see how your effort is impacting your sales. Your KPIs should tie back to your ultimate goal (number of new customers or new sales, for instance). Each effort should also have a measurable KPI, like the number of new visitors to your blog posts, or engagement rate on Instagram (the things that tend to come before the money!).

Document these metrics at the end of every month, and at the end of the year, you'll be able to make smart adjustments to your strategy.

Did you know Enji makes it easy (and dare we say "fun") to track your KPIs?) Instead of doing it all manually, you can connect all your channels to our KPI dashboard to take even more work off your plate!

6. Stay consistent

As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, and consistency is key! So, commit to your marketing tasks and we pretty much promise it'll pay off!

As long as you’ve created a plan that works with your workload, it should become a simple marketing routine that you can follow each week or month.

How do you know if your marketing strategy is a good one?

First off, a good marketing strategy doesn't feel overwhelming to you. In fact, it feels just the opposite—it feels like a realistic plan and not like a ton of extra work.

Second, you can feel good about your marketing strategy when you track your numbers and see them moving in the right direction (within about three months of committing to it).

Another way you know you have a solid strategy? The quality of your customers and clients is great (read: people who don't take a ton of convincing to make a sale, are a pleasure to work with and become repeat customers).

And lastly, you have a good marketing strategy if it is helping you make progress toward your goals.

The 3 most important things for a marketing strategy to work

If you’re still worried about learning how to create a marketing strategy that actually works, we’ve got you. These are the three most important things you need, which your past marketing strategies probably didn’t have:

Some kind of accountability, because sometimes we are our own worst enemies. You need a system that reminds you when it’s time to work on your marketing and review your metrics so that you’re staying consistent. Luckily, Enji can be that for you! With built-in reminders to keep you moving forward, you can finally stay focused on your marketing long-term.
An easy way to make it all happen, because it takes too much time to pull up a billion types of software just to make one Instagram post. Always remember that simplicity is key. We’re happy to say that Enji can also solve this for you! As an all-in-one marketing platform, it can help you feel less overwhelmed and way more organized with your marketing.
A way to track and test, so you always know where to spend your time and money! And oh my, would you look at that, Enji is a solution for you here as well! Our visual KPI dashboard makes it easier than ever to stay on top of your numbers, even if you aren’t a numbers person!