Before You Build a Marketing Strategy, Answer These Four Questions
Most businesses don't have a marketing strategy. They have a list of things they've tried or want to do.
They ran Facebook ads for a few months. They hired someone to post on Instagram. They redid the website. Some of it worked an some of it didn't. And when you ask why it didn't work, the answer usually starts with "Google ads didn't work, social media doesn't work..."
Those weren't strategies, they were tactics.
That's the strategy problem. And it's fixable.
Strategy vs. Tactics: What's the Difference?
A strategy is the plan and tactics are how you carry the plan out.
Advertising, email marketing, and social media work when they're built on a strategy: the right audience, the right message, a clear goal. Without that foundation, you're paying for clicks that go nowhere.
Strategy first. Tactics second. In that order.
Start Here
Before you pick a channel, hire anyone, or spend o marketing, answer these three questions.
Question 1: Where do you want to go?
What does success look like 12 months from now? Be specific. "More business" is not a goal you can build toward.
A landscaping business with three full-time and two part-time employees might answer: get to $1.2M in revenue so we can bring both part-time employees on full-time. That's specific. That's something you can build a marketing strategy around.
Question 2: Where are you now?
What is your current marketing actually doing? What's driving leads today?
That same landscaping business might say: we have a website and most new customers come from referrals. That tells you the website isn't generating leads on its own and word of mouth is carrying the business. Both things matter for what comes next.
Question 3: What have you tried before?
This one gets skipped constantly. Previous attempts, even failed ones, tell you something about your market and your capacity.
The landscaping business tried mailers to neighborhoods a few years ago and had an office admin handling social media at one point. Did the mailers work? Did social media move the needle? If you don't know why something stopped, you'll end up running the same experiment twice.
Question 4: Who is actually buying from you?
Not who you sell to. Who is most likely to buy, come back, and refer others?
The landscaping business looks at their customer list and sees mostly higher-end residential homeowners and a handful of commercial accounts. That's the target. Not every homeowner in a 20-mile radius. The ones most likely to spend, stay, and refer someone else.
Those four answers are your foundation. Everything else: channels, content, budget, who does the work, comes from there.
PDF DOWNLOAD : "4 Questions to Start Your Marketing Strategy" - one-page worksheet
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Your Best Customer Is Already A Customer
Most small business owners will say they sell to everyone. The landscaping business we walked through earlier serves higher-end residential homeowners and a handful of commercial accounts. Both are customers. But they are not the same customer.
The residential homeowner calls once a season, sometimes haggles on price, and might not come back if a neighbor recommends someone cheaper. The commercial account is on a retainer. They show up on the schedule every time. The scope is defined, the work is consistent, and the customer service is straightforward.
When you look at revenue, time spent, and overhead side by side, the commercial account wins. That's the best customer. And they're already buying.
That's who your marketing should speak to. Not because you'll turn residential customers away, but because marketing that tries to reach everyone ends up reaching no one. If you want more commercial accounts, your marketing needs to talk to commercial accounts.
Look at your last 12 months. Which customers came back? Which ones were easiest to work with? Which ones brought in the most revenue without the most effort? That's your target, and they're already in your customer list.
What This Looks Like in Practice
When I was hired at Atlanta Rubber and Hydraulics, the directive from the owner was "Build us a website so customers can buy online."
The goal was simple. I was left to lay out the marketing strategy and execution from there.
Where did they want to go: online sales for commercial accounts who could order 24 hours a day in addition to phone and counter sales
Where were they now: ground zero with a work-in-progress eCommerce website
What had they tried: direct mail flyers and catalogs, email, and trade shows
Who was buying: industrial and commercial businesses that needed hoses, fittings, and hydraulic parts across agriculture, fabrication shops, wastewater, heavy machinery, and other verticals
The best existing customer was already using the internet and would rather place an order online than pick up a phone.
That customer existed across every vertical they served. The strategy was built around making it easy for them to find the site and complete an order without having to call.
That clarity shaped every decision from there. The product catalog was built around the buyers most likely to order online. Years later, that operation had generated $500,000 annually in eCommerce sales.
The strategy wasn't complicated. It started with knowing where we were going.
Go Deeper
These posts cover the channels and tactics that matter most for small and mid-size businesses:
- Why Your eCommerce Store Is Leaving Revenue on the Table
- Small Business Digital Marketing on a Budget
- Conversion Rate Optimization: A Complete Guide
- AIO and GEO: It's Still Just SEO
- Why One eCommerce Company Outranks Its Competitor
If you're figuring out whether to hire an agency, a specialist, or one person who can run the whole function, this page breaks down what a full-stack marketer actually does.