Why Marketing Strategy is Important for Small Business

There are so many things grabbing for your attention at the start of every day. Sometimes it’s the emails you know have been waiting on a response for way too long. Sometimes it’s the delay of a shipment you really needed like yesterday. Sometimes it’s one too many staff members telling you they can’t show up for their shift. And sometimes all of the important things just stack up—in the worst version of “can’t stop, won’t stop” way.

But the thing is, even in the midst of dealing with this and putting out that, you’re still very much responsible for making sure you’re attracting new customers—cuz in a weird way, they fuel all these attention-grabbing problems we hate dealing with but love to have.

And when it comes to making sure your small business is always flush with customers to serve and money in the bank, having a plan to put yourself in front of them is definitely something that deserves some of your attention. So today, we’re going to make sure you really understand why marketing strategy is important for your small business, so you stop telling yourself it can wait.

Here’s everything we’ll dive into:

What a marketing strategy is
Marketing strategy vs. tactics
The benefits of having a marketing strategy
How to create a marketing strategy
What life looks like after you have a strategy

What is a Marketing Strategy?

You could Google this and get some complicated and corporate-sounding answer, or you can read it here in plain English. A marketing strategy is simply a plan that documents how you are going to get potential clients and customers to know you exist—and get them excited about buying from you!

But let’s take it up a notch and give you a bigger picture. A marketing strategy is your high-level overview of your entire marketing approach. It outlines:

What your company does: What are you selling? What problems are you solving for your customers?
Who you serve: Who is your target audience? Who are the ideal customers who need your product or service the most?
Where you’re going to focus: This includes the marketing channels you’ll prioritize—whether it’s social media, email marketing, SEO, or paid ads. Your strategy identifies where you’ll allocate your efforts to reach your audience effectively.

Once you have these essentials nailed down, your marketing efforts stop feeling random. Instead, every action you take is aimed toward a clear, intentional goal. It’s about having a roadmap that leads to success.

Go back to that Googled answer and it’ll also make you think it takes days to create one and that it needs to be 20 pages long. More on that in just a bit, but you can stop freaking out about how hard you think it’s going to be to create a marketing strategy for your small business.

For a deeper dive into what a marketing strategy is, this short video breaks it down:

Marketing strategy vs. tactics

Before we go deeper, we have to clear something up. Because a lot of people confuse the act of marketing with having a strategy, and they are not one in the same. Because your strategy defines the destination and route to get there—tactics are what actually get you there.

Think of tactics as the individual steps you take—whether it’s posting on Instagram, sending out an email newsletter, or running a Google Ads campaign. These are the actions you use to execute your overall strategy. So while you might hear other people refer to “strategies” you can try (notice the plural), here at Enji we think you should have one strategy to guide you and you have multiple tactics to do the strategy. Email us if that doesn’t make sense!

The benefits of having a marketing strategy

Which brings us to the main point we’re trying to drive home here—why marketing strategy is important for small businesses. And the short answer is, having a marketing strategy is important for your small business because it helps you get your marketing right a helluva lot faster.

Here’s how a good marketing strategy benefits your business:

Keeps you focused because you can clearly see the goals you’re marketing towards.
Makes it easier to plan out your time because you know where you need to show up
Helps you talk directly to your ideal customers and clients (read: the ones most likely to buy from you)

Another major benefit of having one? It allows you to work smarter (not harder as the cliché goes). And with less frustration because you aren’t waking up every day without a plan of what you need to do—then freaking out and scrambling to do something that makes you feel like you marketed your business that day but you really just wasted your time and then are going to spiral trying to figure out why your marketing didn’t work. (Woof.)

The last reason is the fact that it’s hard to grade your marketing if you’re taking a “marketing by accident” approach. Think about it. If you have just been doing random acts of marketing, how are you supposed to be able to judge their effectiveness? And this is a big one because we’ve yet to meet a small business owner who isn’t stressed about whether their marketing is working or not (especially if they are putting money into it). So having a marketing strategy is important because you have a documented thing you can actually come back to and judge.

How to Create a Small Business Marketing Strategy

Hopefully you’re feeling more than convinced about why marketing strategy is important for your small business and are now wondering how to create one. And the good news is, it’s not a multi-day project you can’t do yourself! You can create a marketing strategy in minutes in Enji—and one that is customized to your business! Here’s how:

Create your Enji account (it’s free for the first 14 days!)
Complete the marketing strategy questionnaire—this typically takes people 5-10 minutes
Click “Create my strategy” and it’s done!

Yup—it’s that easy and you’ll also get tons of marketing tactics to try as you start implementing your strategy, so you’re never left wondering what to do next.

Want more guidance on creating a strategy? Get our free video training and worksheet here to walk you through the process.

What Life Looks Like After You Have a Strategy

Once you’ve got your marketing strategy in place, things start to feel different. You’ll stop stressing about sales as much and definitely won’t be waking up every day thinking, “What should I post today?” Instead, you’ll know exactly what needs to get done to keep moving toward your goals.

Here are some telltale signs that your strategy is working:

You have a clear plan
You’re attracting the right customers
You feel more confident in your marketing

Need proof? Here’s what one of our Enji customers had to say about the impact of having a strategy!:

“ENJI has been nothing short of a revelation for our marketing strategy. User-friendly from the get-go, this tool has taken the guesswork out of our campaigns and replaced it with data-driven confidence. We LOVE it!” —Anna, WCO Event Planning