How to Create a Marketing Strategy in 7 Steps (+ Free Template)

What is a marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy is your business's game plan for reaching potential customers and turning them into paying customers. It sets out who you're targeting, what makes you the best choice for them, where you'll reach them, and how you'll measure success.

Without a strategy, marketing becomes a string of disconnected tactics: a few social posts here, some ads there, a blog when someone has time. With one, every activity compounds toward the same goal.

Step 1: Set clear, measurable business goals

Start from business outcomes, not marketing activities. Use SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound):

• ❌ "Get more followers"
• ✅ "Generate 60 sales-qualified leads per month by June, at under $150 per lead"

Work backwards from revenue targets: how many customers do you need, what's your close rate, and therefore how many leads and visitors?

Step 2: Research your market and competitors

Look at the top 3–5 competitors your customers actually compare you with. Analyse:

• Their positioning, pricing and offers
• The keywords they rank for and the ads they run (tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs and Google's Ads Transparency Center help)
• Their content, social presence and reviews: what do customers praise or complain about?

Then run a simple SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) to spot gaps you can own.

Step 3: Define your ideal customer profile and buyer personas

Your ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the companies or people who get the most value from you and are most profitable to serve. Buyer personas add depth: their goals, pain points, objections, where they get information and what triggers them to buy.

Step 4: Nail your positioning and messaging

Positioning answers: "Why should my ideal customer choose us over every alternative, including doing nothing?" A simple positioning statement:

For [target customer] who [need/problem], [brand] is the [category] that [key benefit]. Unlike [alternatives], we [key differentiator].

From this, build a messaging hierarchy: one core message, three supporting pillars and proof points for each (results, testimonials, guarantees).

Step 5: Choose the right marketing channels

Pick channels by matching where your buyers are with each stage of the marketing funnel:

Start with two or three channels you can do well rather than six you do badly. Not sure whether to start with search or ads? Read SEO vs PPC.

Step 6: Set your budget and a 90-day plan

Allocate budget by expected return, keeping roughly 70% on proven channels, 20% on promising ones and 10% on experiments. For benchmarks, see how much digital marketing costs.

Then turn strategy into a 90-day marketing plan: specific campaigns, owners, deadlines and expected results. Ninety days is long enough to see results and short enough to stay focused.

Step 7: Measure, learn and optimise

Set up tracking before you launch: GA4 conversions, CRM attribution and a simple dashboard. Track a small set of KPIs tied to your goals:

• Leads / sales and conversion rate
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC) and return on ad spend (ROAS)
• Customer lifetime value (LTV) and LTV:CAC ratio

Review monthly, refresh the plan quarterly and revisit the strategy annually.

Free marketing strategy template

Copy this outline into a document and fill in each section:

1. Business goals: revenue target, customer target, timeline
2. Market & competitor summary: top competitors, SWOT
3. Ideal customer profile & personas
4. Positioning statement & messaging pillars
5. Channel strategy by funnel stage
6. Budget allocation (70/20/10)
7. 90-day action plan: campaigns, owners, dates
8. KPIs & reporting cadence

Marketing strategy examples by industry

The framework stays the same, but the priorities change from one sector to another. Here's how the first 90 days often look:

• SaaS: tighten positioning, build comparison and use-case pages, and fix trial activation before buying more traffic. SaaS playbook.
• E-commerce: work out contribution margin by product, clean up the product feed and set up abandoned-basket and post-purchase emails. E-commerce playbook.
• Healthcare clinics: complete the Google Business Profile, write proper treatment pages and fix how calls are answered. Healthcare playbook.
• Professional services: pick two or three niches, publish expertise-led content and organise referral relationships. Law, accounting and finance playbook.
• B2B and manufacturing: write application and specification content, run LinkedIn for target accounts and agree lead definitions with sales. B2B playbook.

All eight playbooks are in our industries hub.

Common strategy mistakes, and who should write yours

Most marketing strategies fail for a handful of predictable reasons:

• A list of tactics, not a strategy. "Post on LinkedIn three times a week" is an activity. A strategy says who you're trying to win, why they should choose you and which few channels will get you there.
• No numbers. Without targets for leads, cost per customer and revenue, nobody can tell whether the plan is working.
• Too many priorities. Five things done well beat twenty things started.
• Written once, never reviewed. A strategy needs a monthly check and a quarterly rethink.

Template, consultant or agency?

A template is fine if you have experience and time. An agency will usually write a strategy that leads to the services it sells. An independent marketing strategy consultant sits in between: senior judgment, no stake in which channels you choose, and a plan written for your team or agency to deliver. Read how we work to see what that looks like in practice.

Frequently asked questions