The word “strategy” gets tossed around a lot. But what does it really mean, and how can you, as a leader, effectively create and execute a marketing strategy? True leadership in marketing strategy isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about asking the right questions and building systems that solve business challenges with informed insights. Let’s break this down into easy, actionable steps.
Step 1: Building Your Marketing Strategy
First things first, you need a solid foundation for your marketing strategy. This is where you’ll create a roadmap that guides your efforts and adapts to changing conditions.
Gone are the days where you need weeks to conduct extensive market research in order to get this done. Copy+Paste this list into your Google Docs and use your favorite AI tool to help you fill in the details in a matter of minutes:
- Defining Your SMART: Start by setting clear, measurable goals that tie into your broader company goals. For instance, you might aim to increase website traffic by 30% over the next six months. Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) like organic search traffic, referral traffic, and social media engagement. These KPIs will help you track progress and make necessary adjustments along the way.
Prompts:
- “Help me set a clear, measurable goal for increasing website traffic by 30% in six months.”
- “What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) I should track for website traffic, referral traffic, and social media engagement?”
- Understanding Your Audience: Knowing your audience is crucial. Create detailed buyer personas that include demographics, behaviors, and pain points. This can be done through surveys, analytics tools, and feedback from your sales and customer service teams. Understanding your audience helps you tailor your strategy to meet their needs effectively.
Prompts:
- “Guide me in creating detailed buyer personas that include demographics, behaviors, and pain points.”
- “What survey questions should I ask to gather information about my audience?”
- Conducting Competitive Analysis: Next, analyze your competitors. Identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs can provide valuable insights into competitors’ keywords, backlinks, and content strategies. This analysis helps you identify gaps and opportunities in your own strategy.
Prompts:
- “How do I conduct a SWOT analysis for my top three competitors?”
- “What are some key things to look for when analyzing competitors?”
- Developing a Content Strategy: Distribution and promotion are important. This is where you’ll use social media, email marketing, and influencers to get your message out. Keep in mind, this isn’t the time to actually make the posts. This is where you’ll nail down what platforms you’ll be using and how often you want to post. Your content strategy should include a detailed calendar with blog posts, social media updates, and email newsletters. This keeps your audience interested and brings more traffic to your site. Customize your content for each platform, set a posting schedule, and track engagement to adjust your strategies as needed.
- Grab our freebie with 30 Content Ideas to get your creative juices flowing.
- Measurement and Optimization: Finally, use tools like Google Analytics to track your website performance and user behavior. Regularly review analytics reports to see what’s working and what’s not. A/B testing different strategies can help you find the most effective tactics.
Prompt:
- “What should I look for in analytics reports to identify what’s working and what’s not?”
Step 2: Aligning Leadership with Strategic Development
Aligning leadership with your strategic development ensures that everyone from the C-suite to entry-level employees understands and works towards common goals.
Meet With Your Team: Lead the meeting with clear communication and openness to ideas. Discuss the top three business goals for each leader, identify overlapping goals and potential conflicts, and facilitate a brainstorming session to create a shared vision statement. This approach fosters a cohesive strategy and ensures everyone is on the same page.
Build and Lead a Cross-Collaborative Team: Break down internal silos by forming a team that encourages cross-departmental collaboration. Clearly define roles and responsibilities for each member to foster accountability and ensure effective execution of the strategy.
Develop a Continuous Feedback Loop: Set up regular strategy review meetings to discuss progress and adapt plans as needed. A continuous feedback loop ensures that your strategy evolves with changing market conditions and organizational needs.
Step 3: External Leadership and Hiring Needs
Sometimes, you need to look outside your organization to strengthen your strategy. Evaluating the need for a CMO and working with HR for hiring needs are crucial steps.
Evaluate the Need for a CMO: Assess whether your current marketing leadership can bridge business objectives and market realities. If your strategy lacks cohesion or innovation, it might be time to consider hiring a CMO.
ICYMI: Watch this recap of our most recent webinar: “Facing Marketing Insecurity: Is a Fractional CMO the Answer?”
Get expert advice and discover if a Fractional CMO is the right fit for you! Beth is offering free consultations to help you determine if a fractional CMO is right for your business.
Work with HR for Hiring Needs: Identify skill gaps within your team and determine the expertise needed. Develop job descriptions that align roles with strategic needs. Working closely with HR ensures that you hire the right people who can drive your strategy forward.
Step 4: What’s Next?
Once you have your strategy and team in place, it’s time to look ahead and make sure your strategy is strong and flexible.
- Outline the Game Plan: Put together a detailed strategy by creating a comprehensive document to keep things organized. This should lay out specific tasks, timelines, and responsibilities. Help your team set up workflows and give them the tools they need to succeed.
- Identify Potential Risks and Challenges: Look for potential problems and figure out how to handle them ahead of time. This helps your strategy stay strong and adaptable to unexpected changes.
- Foster Adaptability and Innovation: Encourage your team to come up with creative solutions to any issues that pop up. Build a culture of flexibility and continuous improvement so your team can quickly respond to market changes. Provide spaces for brainstorming and testing new ideas, whether in-person or virtual, to inspire strategic thinking and innovation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, “strategy” in marketing needs a careful and thoughtful approach. You’ll need to have a plan, ask the right questions, and create a system that can adapt and succeed in a constantly changing environment. Follow the steps in this guide to build, align, and lead a successful marketing strategy that propels your business forward. If you need help along the way, Chatterkick is here to help your businesses navigate this process to help you bring your vision to life.
Chatterkick Team
The Chatterkick team is made up of envelope-pushers, big thinkers, brainstormers, and conversation starters. We live and breathe social media advertising and all its analytics and data. We love to create engaged, happy social media communities around businesses, and we are dedicated to creating a glowing brand reputation, culture, and voice for our clients. This blog was brought to you in collaboration with multiple Chatterkick team members. Follow me on Twitter