Marketing Strategies, Tactics, and Content for Your Marketing Plan

Whether you’re a new startup or have been around for decades, your business requires thoughtful marketing to send your name out into the customer-sphere and keep you there. And more than that, your marketing plan should reflect your mission to capture your industry and set your business up as the choice for your clients, customers, and target audience.

Every marketing plan should exist to achieve a goal or a cohesive series of goals. And whether the plan is well thought out or not, it will always consist of strategies, tactics, and content.

What Are Marketing Strategies, Tactics, and Content?

Regardless of its quality, every marketing plan includes strategy, tactics, and content to fulfill the plan and reach the desired goal.

Before we get into the difference between these three, let’s create a scenario to follow. Let’s say a fictional beverage company, Splashi, has created a new line of drink products to be released to the public in the new year. To get distributors and customers to buy their latest products, Splashi’s marketing team has to create a plan that reaches the right audiences, letting them know the line exists and is available for purchase.

Marketing Strategy

In the Splashi scenario, the goal is not only to inform buyers of the new beverage line, but also to reach customers and convince them to buy these products.

This goal requires a marketing strategy that will reach both distribution buyers and consumers.

Marketing strategies should exist to guide the direction toward the goal. In other words, a marketing strategy is the plan’s vision.

Splashi’s marketing strategy will likely consist of several sub-strategies that steer toward the big-picture goal of selling the new product line.

The strategies may include:

• Email marketing strategies
• Print ad strategies
• Search engine marketing strategies
• Social media marketing strategies
• Video marketing strategies

And so many other possible strategies to reach the target audiences.

Marketing Tactics

If the strategy is the vision, the tactics are simply the actions needed to pull the strategies off.

Let’s say Splashi’s marketing team has decided to use all the above-mentioned strategies to reach buyers and consumers: email marketing, print advertising, search engine marketing, social media marketing, and video marketing.

The tactics for each will include:

• Creating an email marketing campaign and sending emails
• Buying ad spaces and placing the ads; creating pieces for print and distributing them
• Managing a Google Ads and Microsoft Ads campaign
• Creating and managing a Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn ads campaign and posting ads
• Creating a video ad campaign and distributing the video(s)

Marketing Content

So, strategy is the vision, and tactics are the action. The content, then, is simply the physical or digital collateral needed to implement the tactics and fulfill the strategies. In other words, the content is the message-filled material that the buyers and consumers will encounter.

Since Splashi is relying on email marketing, print advertising, search engine marketing, social media marketing, and video marketing to reach its target audiences, the content needed for each will include a range of assets and materials:

• Email Marketing – emails that announce the new product line, describe each product in the line, provide discount information, and detail anything else Splashi wants its audience to know. With email marketing, Splashi can send buyer-related content specifically to their buyers and consumer-focused content directly to consumers.
• Print Advertising – well-designed advertisements for billboards or magazines; postcards for direct mail campaigns; brochures, flyers, and catalogs for buyers; etc. The content for print pieces should include eye-catching designs and briefly announce the big-picture message, most likely “New Products from Splashi” or something of the sort.
• Search Engine Marketing – Well-designed display ads, well-thought-out search ads, and copy-smart landing pages. The content in search engine marketing needs to be strategic and centered around well-researched keywords and phrases. Splashi’s goal should be tapping into the minds of target users who are conducting company-related searches on Google or Bing.
• Social Media Marketing – Catchy graphic posts, video ads, product ads, and more that encourage buyers or consumers to take action and make a purchase, visit the website, shop for more products, etc. The content for social media marketing can vary between platforms. For example, Instagram ad content can target consumers, while LinkedIn ads can feature more buyer-focused content.
• Video Marketing – videos for television commercials, YouTube advertisements, social media marketing, and other ad platforms that are video-friendly. Video content should hinge on quality scripts, video creation strategy, strategic shot lists, and strong video editing.

The Best Marketing Strategies are Created Alongside Marketing Planning Pros

When you want to capture your industry, you need a marketing plan that consists of well-analyzed strategies, effective tactics, and thoughtful content. And the best way to achieve that is with help from an experienced marketing company that consistently sees what works, what doesn’t, and what is changing.

A marketing strategy that works for a company in another industry may not be the best one to incorporate into your plan. And a team that is up to date on all things marketing will be able to guide your planning decisions so that you optimize your focus and your marketing efforts.

At M&R, we have helped businesses and organizations across industries create marketing plans and reach or exceed goals. Common industries we have served include:

• Construction
• eCommerce
• Education
• Forestry
• Government and municipal
• Healthcare
• Hospitality
• Insurance
• Law
• Manufacturing
• Retail
• Telecommunications
• Transportation

And that’s just the short list.

Our entire team is all in to create your most robust marketing plan. We feature in-house business development managers, project managers, copywriters, designers, web developers, and digital strategists who are all fully engaged to usher in results that meet and exceed your expectations. If it’s time to discuss what’s possible through your marketing plan, contact one of our business development managers today!

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