Your Marketing Process Guide: 5 Key Parts

What Is a Marketing Process?

The selling process is simply a step-by-step model you usage to marque definite your selling campaigns are good planned and effective.

With a wide selling roadmap, you tin marque the astir of your time, money, and resources. Your efforts are intentional and thought out—you’re not conscionable executing random selling tasks and hoping they work.

A strategical selling process helps you: 

• Target the close assemblage and conscionable their needs
• Set wide goals and objectively measurement progress
• Choose the organisation channels and messages that’ll person the top impact

In different words, you tin thrust greater lawsuit value, loyalty, and sales.

While moving done the process takes time, it’s worthy the effort. 

Don’t sweat it if you’ve ne'er utilized a selling process before. We’ll locomotion you done it successful 5 straightforward steps.

1. Conduct Market Research to Understand Your Audience and Competition

Market research helps you get to cognize your lawsuit basal and the surrounding concern landscape. 

Your findings past pass your buyer personas—fictional profiles that correspond the needs, interests, and demographic info of your perfect customers. 

These insights assistance signifier your selling strategy.

This portion of the selling process is besides utile for learning however you tin get your institution to basal retired from the contention and pull much customers. 

And each this info tin beryllium shared with Sales and Product Development. So, everyone is connected the aforesaid leafage erstwhile it comes to driving lawsuit restitution and caller business.

Simplify your attack to marketplace probe with 2 buckets: qualitative and quantitative data.

Qualitative information is user feedback. And quantitative information includes hard numbers and stats astir your people assemblage and industry.

Combining some of them volition springiness you the clearest representation of who your customers are, what they expect, and however you tin thrust much business.

Further reading: Market Research: What It Is & How to Do It

How to Collect Qualitative Data

Use absorption groups, one-on-one interviews, and surveys to inquire existent and imaginable customers (like income leads and societal media followers) circumstantial questions astir your brand.

The extremity is to uncover their likes, dislikes, and ways your marque tin improve.

Focus connected open-ended questions to get much elaborate feedback than elemental “yes” oregon “no” responses.

For example:

• What bash you similar astir our product/service?
• What would you alteration astir our product/service?
• What different akin products/services bash you usage too ours?
• How did you find retired astir our product/service?
• What would you similar to spot much of connected our societal media channels?

Offer escaped gifts oregon merchandise discounts if you’re acrophobic astir debased effect rates. These types of perks tin besides springiness you a bigger fig of radical to larn from.

If you can’t easy interaction your ain customers, though, cheque retired the Consumer Surveys app. 

The app compiles 12,500 antithetic survey responses a period connected user habits and attitudes. And you tin besides usage it to motorboat your ain customized survey.

How to Collect Quantitative Data 

You tin cod quantitative info connected your people assemblage and manufacture from survey forms (e.g., including demographic fields oregon sending a Net Promoter Score survey). Or by combing done credible reports (like our State of Content Marketing Global Report).

These are decidedly adjuvant approaches. But they’re besides approaches that impact a batch of clip and manual effort.

It’s faster to usage a market investigation tool.

For example, with Semrush’s Market Explorer, you tin easily:

• Analyze competitors: Learn astir competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and place opportunities to differentiate your business
• Learn astir your industry’s consumers: Discover demographic details, interests, and societal media use
• Monitor trends: Stay up of the curve by identifying emerging patterns and opportunities successful your industry
• Identify caller markets: Research caller markets for growth, allowing you to grow your concern and scope caller audiences

Open the instrumentality and take “Find Competitors.” Enter your competitor’s domain. Then, click “Research a market.”

You’ll spot a summary study that includes details similar the marketplace size, marketplace share, and cardinal players. 

Click “View details” to grow the database of the apical brands successful your industry.

Click connected immoderate domain to larn much astir their traffic, apical selling channels, and marketplace audiences. 

You tin besides click “View details” beneath a domain to research their Traffic Analytics. 

By the extremity of your competitory analysis, you should beryllium capable to successfully reply astir (if not all) of the questions related to the Four P’s of Marketing:

Compile All Your Data and Do a SWOT Analysis

After you’ve uncovered each kinds of lawsuit and rival insights, it’s clip to usage that cognition to behaviour a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis.

Answer the questions successful each quadrant. Those answers volition usher your selling strategy, helping you marque data-driven decisions passim the selling process alternatively of relying connected guesswork.

Further reading: What Is a Competitor Analysis & How to Do it (with Template) 

2. Create a Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy

Your company’s occurrence yet comes down to however bully you are astatine engaging and satisfying customers. 

By keeping their preferences, needs, and expectations astatine the halfway of your selling process, you tin marque strategical choices that resonate with your people audience. And enactment your company’s bottommost line.

Here’s however to bash it:

Set Clear Marketing Goals

Clear goals successful a customer-driven selling strategy acceptable the instauration for however you’ll supply worth to existent and prospective consumers.

Start by asking a high-level question:

“What bash we privation to execute with our marketing?” 

Some big-picture examples include:

• Generating prime leads
• Increasing web traffic
• Growing your lawsuit base
• Increasing revenue
• Boosting marque awareness

It’s OK to person much than 1 selling goal. Just arsenic it’s OK to person antithetic strategies for antithetic goals and audiences.

But each extremity you person should align with your lawsuit research—that’s what cements the “customer-driven” constituent of your selling strategy. And yet helps you turn sales.

Say you larn from a survey that idiosyncratic recommendations power your people assemblage much than immoderate different factor. That could construe into a extremity to turn societal media engagement.

Because promotions from existing customers volition apt assistance you make much involvement and caller customers.

Or possibly you larn that astir customers commencement their buying journeys with Google searches. So, improving your SEO to summation visibility would beryllium the smartest prime to assistance you turn your lawsuit base.

Once you’re wide connected your overarching selling goals, usage the SMART model (SMART stands for specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound) to crook them into smaller, achievable steps that lend to your eventual goal. 

For instance, if you privation to get much visitors to your website, here’s what a SMART extremity mightiness look like: 

“We privation to summation website postulation by 50% successful 12 months by creating search-optimized contented astir topics that align with our latest keyword research. We person a squad of experienced copywriters and editors successful spot to execute this.”

That gives you and your selling squad thing tangible to purpose for, alternatively than conscionable a wide thought similar “growing website traffic.” So, it’s overmuch easier to way and measurement progress.

And arsenic important, SMART goals guarantee your selling efforts enactment focused connected gathering customers wherever they’re at. 

Use Marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to Evaluate Your Progress

It’s not capable to conscionable acceptable goals successful your selling process. You besides request to beryllium capable to measurement your advancement toward gathering them. 

Otherwise, it’s pugnacious to fig retired what selling activities are objectively moving and wherever you mightiness request to tweak things to improve.

This is wherever key show indicators (KPIs) travel in. These quantifiable metrics fto you way however effectual your selling efforts are.

Say you’re focused connected retaining customers longer. You mightiness usage a income metric similar mean lawsuit beingness worth (CLV). The higher your CLV, the little wealth you’ll request to walk bringing successful caller business. 

Or if your nonsubjective is to summation postulation with high-quality content, a instrumentality similar Traffic Analytics tin assistance you show traffic, engagement, and conversions successful examination to your competitors.

Other adjuvant information analytics tools to see include: 

• Google Search Console for website show and integrated postulation from Google
• Google Analytics for website show and behaviour data
• Google Ads Manager for pay-per-click performance
• Social Media Tracker for societal engagement
• Meta Ads Manager for tracking Facebook and Instagram ads
• Position Tracking for keyword rankings
• Hubspot CRM for lawsuit work and income performance

Further reading: 20 Marketing KPIs You Need to beryllium Monitoring

Nail Down Your Value Proposition

Your worth proposition rapidly gives customers an thought of what your marque is each about. And helps you support your selling aligned with a cardinal purpose.

You privation it to talk to:

1. How your merchandise oregon work benefits customers
2. How you lick their problems
3. What you bash amended than your competitors

For example, Slack’s worth proposition is: 

“Made for people. Built for productivity. Connect the close people, find thing that you need, and automate the rest. That’s enactment successful Slack, your productivity platform.”

This instantly tells visitors however Slack solves users’ problems successful ways that its competitors can’t—or astatine slightest what Slack excels at. The features it highlights are large selling points for radical successful distant oregon hybrid enactment environments—its people customers.

Further reading: What Is a Value Proposition and How to Write One

Establish oregon Refresh Your Brand Guidelines

From visuals to messaging, marque guidelines assistance you support consistency successful however you contiguous your company.

They mostly see details connected your:

• Brand values
• Brand position
• Tone of voice
• Vocabulary to usage and avoid
• Spelling, stylization, and grammar rules
• Brand assets (i.e., logo, colors, fonts, and graphics)

Following them makes definite customers get the aforesaid “vibe” from your enactment astatine each touchpoint, which helps to physique marque designation and spot implicit time.

So, customers are much apt to retrieve your institution and make an affectional transportation with it.

Without marque guidelines, it’s casual for contented and different selling assets to go disjointed and confusing for users. This makes it harder to get acquainted with your institution and to found the marque spot that influences spending decisions.

For example, email selling level Mailchimp uses the aforesaid conversational code of voice, playful plan and imagery, and yellowish marque colour crossed its website:

On its social media accounts: 

And physical media campaigns:

Mailchimp’s selling contented is visually striking capable to drawback caller customers’ attention. And accordant capable truthful that it’s casual to recognize.

When creating oregon revamping marque guidelines, marque definite you impact applicable stakeholders extracurricular of marketing. Like radical successful sales, merchandise development, and the C-suite. 

This benignant of collaboration keeps everyone aligned and helps you get buy-in connected consistently utilizing the guidelines crossed departments. Which allows the marque to beryllium represented successful a mode that champion speaks to your audience.

When finalized, marque definite each applicable squad members (including freelancers) person casual entree to the guidelines.

Further reading: How to Build a Brand Identity successful 5 Steps

3. Develop a Marketing Plan to Execute Your Strategy

“Marketing strategy” and “marketing plan” are often utilized interchangeably successful a selling process. But they’re really antithetic things.

Your selling strategy says, “We privation to physique a house.” 

But your selling program says, “Here’s how we’ll physique our house.” 

Revisiting your selling program each 4th lets you accommodate it to evolving concern goals. Or if your goals alteration much slowly, you tin usage an yearly selling program instead.

And it doesn’t person to beryllium arsenic agelong oregon elaborate arsenic your selling strategy. A one-page program is good if it includes the cardinal accusation your squad needs to bash their work.

List your people audience, selling goals, worth proposition, KPIs, and full fund astatine the apical of the leafage arsenic wide reminders. 

Then, dive into the nutrient of your plan:

List Out Your Marketing Tactics

Your tactics spell retired the circumstantial actions you’ll instrumentality to execute your selling goals.

At a precocious level, this conception of your selling program covers your chosen:

• Marketing activities
• Distribution channels
• Research methods
• Tech stack, apps, and login credentials
• Resources (e.g., people)

For example, your tactics to execute a extremity of increasing integrated postulation by 25% successful 12 months could be:

• Marketing activities: SEO blog content
• Distribution channels: Email and societal media
• Research methods: Keyword probe and rival analysis
• Tech stack, apps, and login credentials: Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool and AI Writing Assistant
• Resources (e.g., people): In-house contented marketers and freelancers

Whatever your selling tactics are, you request the close tech tools to assistance you on the way. If you privation to turn integrated postulation but are trying to place people keywords and way your hunt positions manually, you’re not utilizing your clip wisely.

This is wherever a solution similar Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool comes successful handy. Here’s however to usage it: 

Enter a keyword related to your business. Choose your country, past click “Search.”

You’ll spot a database of related keywords. You tin benignant them by fields specified arsenic search intent, hunt volume, trend, and keyword trouble (KD%).

There’s besides the “Questions” filter, which shows the apical questions your assemblage is searching for answers to. These are large starting points for blog topics oregon conception headers.

And whether you’re moving with owned oregon paid media, our SEO Writing Assistant tin assistance you easy make high-quality content.

Create Your Marketing Timeline

The adjacent measurement successful processing your selling program is to found a timeline for executing your tactics. How agelong volition it instrumentality you to execute your goals? And what volition the large milestones be?

So, if your selling strategy extremity is to summation postulation by 50% successful 12 months, you should make a 12-month selling plan. If you execute your extremity sooner, you tin ever revisit your program and purpose for thing bigger. 

Whatever your timeline is, interruption it down into manageable chunks to marque it easier to enactment connected track.

For example, you mightiness disagreement a 12-month program into quarters:

• Q1: Write 2 caller blog posts per week and 1 email newsletter per week
• Q2: Write 2 caller blog posts per week and 1 email newsletter per week
• Q3: Rewrite 30 low-performing blog posts and repurpose 10 fashionable societal media posts
• Q4: Create a downloadable usher to stock crossed societal media. Write 4 emails to beforehand the guide. Write 2 caller blog posts per week and 100 societal media posts

Then, behaviour resource planning to marque definite your squad volition person the time, tools, and fund to conscionable those goals. And to marque definite everyone knows what’s expected of them. 

Work backmost from your desired extremity to find the nonstop steps that’ll assistance you execute it. And marque definite there’s sum for each component. 

In this example, you’ll request to plan, create, edit, and o.k. each portion of SEO content. So, inquire yourself:

• How galore antithetic steps does this workflow involve?
• How agelong does each measurement instrumentality (approximately)?
• Who is progressive astatine each step?
• What are the deadlines for each step?
• Who volition capable successful if idiosyncratic is retired of office?

Taking the clip to fig this retired up beforehand volition prevention from scrambling successful the agelong run.

Once you person your timeline nailed down, make a shared papers oregon usage task absorption bundle to marque your calendar.

Clear labels, tags, and color-coding assistance collaborators tin spot who’s liable for each task. And marque it easier for you to show selling workflows. 

Here’s an illustration from GanttPRO: 

Image Source: GanttPRO

Further reading: Marketing Calendar: How to Build One + 5 Free Templates

4. Implement Your Marketing Plan And Measure Results

Now that you’ve got a coagulated selling strategy and program successful place, it’s clip to get rolling and execute.

As you commencement moving done your selling campaigns and tasks, support a adjacent oculus connected your KPIs. So you tin set things arsenic needed.

Say your java concern is ranking highly for some “coffee beans” and “tea bags” connected Google. But “coffee beans” is driving doubly arsenic overmuch postulation to your site. 

That’s a motion that your people assemblage trusts you much arsenic a root of accusation connected java than tea. So, doubling down connected that taxable (with caller ideas from Semrush’s Topic Research tool) would assistance you get much eyes connected your site.

Compile each your information points crossed tools with Semrush’s My Reports. You tin physique your ain study from scratch. Or commencement with 1 of our customizable, pre-set templates.

Besides examining your ain show data, way your competitors and set benchmarks against theirs. So you tin objectively spot however you’re doing and look for ideas to amended if needed. 

If you’re looking to comparison SEO metrics, cheque retired Semrush’s Traffic Analytics. Enter up to 5 competitors’ URLs successful the substance container and click “Analyze.”

The dashboard volition springiness you an overview connected details like:

• Visits
• Unique visitors
• Pages per visit
• Average sojourn duration
• Bounce rate

5. Build Lasting Customer Relationships 

The selling process doesn’t extremity aft your run launches.

Instead, it’s clip to treble down connected strengthening lawsuit loyalty and advocacy. This helps boost the occurrence of your selling strategy and program by deepening lawsuit spot and restitution with your brand.

Lasting lawsuit relationships marque radical much apt to travel backmost and urge you to others. In fact, over fractional (52%) of respondents successful PwC’s Customer Loyalty Survey said they explicit marque loyalty by recommending companies to different people.

That word-of-mouth selling introduces much imaginable customers to your company. And makes your selling process more outgo effective by expanding your mean CLV. 

Use Loyalty and Referral Marketing Programs

By offering customers other perks, loyalty and referral programs incentivize customers to marque repetition purchases oregon urge your brand.

For example, Sephora’s Beauty Insider loyalty programme lets members gain rewards for each purchase.

Customers tin redeem points connected items similar acquisition cards, constricted variation products, oregon quality tutorials. And the much they spend, the amended the rewards become. 

It’s specified a palmy exemplary that Beauty Insider members thrust astir 80% of Sephora’s sales.

And connected the referral selling front, Verizon offers important savings to caller and existing customers:

A Loyalty Data Study by Ebbo shows that customers are attracted to: 

• Free, faster shipping
• Instant discounts
• Free giveaways

So, if you’re gathering a loyalty oregon referral selling programme of your own, support these successful mind. And look astatine what your contention offers successful their ain programs.

Directly surveying customers to find retired what perks they’d bask astir volition besides assistance you tailor your programme to your customers’ unsocial preferences. Which volition assistance thrust information and sales.

Further reading: The Future of Ecommerce is Now: Industry Insights for 2023 & Beyond

Offer Personalized Interactions and After-Sales Support 

Treating customers similar radical and not conscionable a fig helps fortify their affectional transportation to your brand. 

And staying successful interaction with helpful, customized contented aft they acquisition keeps your institution astatine the beforehand of their minds. 

Plant concern Rooted’s post-purchase email is simply a large example. 

Their unboxing instructions assistance customers get the astir retired of their product, gathering spot successful the merchandise and marque portion improving lawsuit satisfaction. 

Rooted’s website besides has a assets halfway to assistance customers lick problems and look aft their plants. 

And a Discord assemblage wherever customers tin link with like-minded radical and larn works attraction from manufacture experts.

By being adjuvant and delivering ongoing lawsuit value, Rooted strengthens its customers’ narration with the brand. And keeps them coming backmost for more.

Encourage customers to make and stock contented related to your brand. And stock it connected your ain societal media accounts.

This benignant of user-generated contented (UGC) turns satisfied customers into advocates who tin interaction others' purchasing decisions.

This helps turn your lawsuit basal by allowing radical to spot integrated endorsements from radical who already usage your products oregon services. And builds a invaluable consciousness of assemblage online.

Cosmetics marque Glossier does this well. 

Here’s an illustration of Glossier utilizing existent radical (Instagram idiosyncratic and influencer @hannahharris___) to beforehand products connected Instagram:

Image source: Glossier Instagram

The station provides societal impervious and a relatable usage lawsuit for imaginable and existing customers who travel Glossier connected Instagram, expanding their spot successful the brand. It besides keeps radical talking positively astir Glossier’s products.

The result?

70% of its online sales and postulation travel from peer-to-peer referrals. Glossier adjacent describes itself successful its societal media bios arsenic a “people-powered quality ecosystem.”

Here are 3 elemental tips to promote UGC contributions:

• Create engaging challenges: Encourage information by creating contests oregon customized hashtags 
• Showcase idiosyncratic content: Highlight UGC connected your level to amusement appreciation for contributions and animate others to participate
• Provide wide guidelines: Clearly outline what benignant of contented you're looking for and immoderate submission rules oregon guidelines to marque it casual for users to contribute

For example, electronics marque OnePlus encourages UGC contributions done its “Shot connected OnePlus” campaign. It involves inviting customers to stock themed photography and showcasing the results successful community posts, blog articles, and different selling content.

Further reading: How to Find Influencers for Your Brand (Not Just connected Instagram)

Use the Marketing Process to Stay Competitive

The steps of the selling process are cyclical. Effective selling comes from research, strategical readying and execution, and learning. And these tasks are ne'er one-and-done.

Use the results of your archetypal selling process to animate aboriginal campaigns. So you tin proceed to larn much astir your customers and amended your strategies to turn and enactment competitive. 

Start with Semrush’s Market Explorer instrumentality to spot who you’re up against and get insights for your selling strategy.