business plan promotional strategy

Filter by Keywords

Effective Promotion Strategies: Drive Sales and Boost Brand Awareness

Sudarshan Somanathan

Head of Content

March 14, 2024

Effective promotion strategies can drive sales, increase brand awareness, and engage your target audience. 🌻

Whether you’re a small business owner or a marketing professional, understanding how to create and implement these strategies is essential. It’s all about clearly defining your goals and identifying the path to success.

This guide has everything you need to know about promotion strategies, including what they entail, how to use them, and what results to expect. We’ve also highlighted some examples to inspire your next great marketing campaign.

• What Is a Promotion Strategy?

Understanding Promotion Strategies

Research and understanding of your target audience, analysis of content consumption by the target audience, selection of optimal channels for promotion, cost determination and budgeting for marketing, evaluation of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (swot), development and implementation of the marketing plan.

• Influencer marketing
• Direct marketing
• Public relations
• Sales promotions

Advertising

How to have a successful promotion strategy, case study: how having the right tools helps with promotional strategies, the future of promotion strategies.

• 1. What are the 5 promotional strategies?

2. Why is a promotion strategy important?

• 3. How do you create a promotional strategy?

What Is a Promotion Strategy ?

A promotion strategy is a type of marketing designed to increase the visibility, desirability, and sales of a product, service, or brand. It involves marketing tactics designed to reach and connect with a target audience, including new and existing customers.

Information about the target audience lets you craft marketing goals and tactics likely to drive conversions. It also helps you choose the correct types of promotional campaigns, which might include:

• Email marketing
• Social media marketing
• Word-of-mouth marketing
• Customer loyalty programs
• Referral programs and incentives
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Marketing collaborations and partnerships
• Content marketing
• Giveaways and free samples
• Digital display ads
• Physical display ads (e.g., billboards)
• Personal selling

You don’t need to use all of these tactics. Most companies and marketing professionals select the ones that are most appealing to their target market.

The promotion strategies you choose to use are known as your marketing mix.

Each element of your marketing mix will require its own strategy. For example, content marketing efforts can benefit from a well-thought-out content calendar , an SEO plan, and high-quality call-to-actions (CTAs).

The purpose of a promotion strategy is to improve brand visibility, drive sales, and attract new customers by communicating your product or service’s value proposition to the target audience.

Before you implement one, you’ll want to define elements like:

• Marketing objectives: What you want to achieve
• Key results: Metrics that you’ll use to measure success

Seasoned professionals will likely know this as defining your marketing OKRs . You’ll use your OKRs (which is short for objectives and key results) to track and measure the success of products, services, and related strategies. 📈 🙌  

While specifics often vary between companies, almost all promotion strategies aim to create awareness, generate interest, and foster customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Your company’s primary goals might include growing your customer base, turning new customers into loyal customers, engaging existing customers by building trust, or all of the above.

Once your promotional effort is underway, marketing campaign management strategies help you track the key results and adjust as needed.

Key Elements of a Promotion Strategy

Understanding the general idea of a promotion strategy is a start. Now, it’s time to look at how to develop and execute your big plan!

Let’s take a step-by-step look at the most important elements below.

Researching and developing a better understanding of your target audience is essential when creating any new brand management strategy . Once you know who you’re targeting, it’s time to establish a deeper understanding of how to engage them.

The best way to get inside the minds of your target audience is market segmentation. In other words, you’ll break down your target audience based on things like:

• Demographics

This information can help you develop effective new product launch strategies, identify the best marketing channels, refine your landing pages, connect with current customers, and drive the overall success of your brand.

Pro tip: Some digital marketing apps can help you segment your target audience with templates and questionnaires. 

Studying how people within your target demographic interact with various types of content is an essential element of deciding how to spend your marketing budget.

Methods of content consumption might include:

• Newsletters
• Social media platforms
• Industry publications
• Video-sharing platforms

Tools like Google Analytics, social media analytics, email marketing platforms, and market research surveys can help you effectively gather data on your audience’s content consumption habits.

The best tool depends on your business. For example, a startup with a limited customer base might not benefit from sending a market research survey to existing subscribers as much as an established company would.

Pro tip: Customer profile templates can lay the groundwork for your marketing team to better understand how your customers prefer to consume content.

Learning more about how your target audience consumes content helps you refine marketing initiatives by selecting the best channels for your promotion strategies.

For instance, you don’t want to pour everything into email campaigns when your audience responds better to social media marketing. In this case, allocating part of your budget to TikTok marketing tools might be more effective at increasing sales and brand loyalty.

Pro tip: ClickUp’s Data Analysis Report Template can make finding patterns and trends in the data easier. It has everything you need to identify which types of content and marketing channels perform best at driving customer engagement. 👀 

Now that you’ve selected the optimal channels for promotion, it’s time to determine the costs of each and develop a budget for your promotion strategy.

You might not be able to budget for every marketing channel you selected in the above step. Sometimes, it’s about balancing cost-effective strategies and those that create the greatest sense of urgency for your audience.

Pro tip: ClickUp’s Marketing Budget Template can help you outline your campaign initiatives, the goals they’re aligned with, and whether you’re staying on budget each quarter. It’s also a fantastic way to compare how different marketing efforts perform over time.

Evaluating your promotion strategies’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) is essential to create effective campaigns. Here’s a breakdown:

• Strengths: What your strategy does well
• Weaknesses: What your strategy doesn’t do well
• Opportunities: Potential favorable circumstances
• Threats: Possible challenges or risks

By examining these factors, you can better understand how to leverage your strengths, address weaknesses, take advantage of opportunities, and mitigate threats to create more effective promotions.

Pro tip: Check out some free SWOT analysis templates to make it easier to understand core issues that impact your success.

Now for the fun part! Developing and implementing your marketing plan. ✨🎉

It’s time to send free products to influencers, launch email campaigns, run paid ads on Amazon, or otherwise execute the steps you’ve chosen to improve your brand image and customer retention.

This step entails creating a detailed roadmap of your marketing objectives, strategies, tactics, and milestones. Your roadmap is your guide for executing your plans and making necessary adjustments to keep things on track.

Pro tip: ClickUp has dozens of marketing plan templates to guide you through this process—helping you develop and optimize every facet of your brand promotion strategy.

Types of Promotion Strategies

We listed several types of promotion strategies earlier in the article. Let’s take a closer look at five of the most popular options.

Influencer marketing involves partnering with or offering sponsorships to individuals with a solid following and influence over your target audience. Influencers can promote your brand’s products or services via sponsored posts on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

Direct marketing is all about reaching out to potential customers using channels like email, direct mail, telemarketing, and SMS. Examples include email newsletters, catalogs, flyers, and targeted online advertisements.

For instance, an e-commerce company might text potential customers offering limited-time deals for relevant, high-quality products.

Public relations is all about managing relationships with the public, media, and other stakeholders to build a positive brand image, increase customer engagement, and improve retention. This might include press releases for new products, media interviews, sponsorships, and community outreach events. 

Sales promotions involve short-term incentives designed to encourage immediate purchase or action. This approach often includes discounts, coupons, BOGO (buy one, get one) offers, limited-time sales, contests, and giveaways.

It’s often combined with strategies like direct marketing or influencer sponsorships.

Advertising is the bread and butter of many brands’ marketing. The most popular types of advertising outlets include paid social media posts, search engine results, and online display ads.

Creating a successful promotion strategy doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s easiest when you’re leveraging effective tools that save you time and money. 🛠️  

ClickUp for marketing teams is the most effective tool for managing and optimizing every aspect of your marketing efforts.

It has everything you need to handle projects, tasks, and campaigns for your marketing and promotional projects.

For instance, use the free ClickUp Campaign and Promotion Management Template to get started in seconds. It was designed with advanced features to simplify complex needs and a ready-to-use, fully customizable Folder to make campaign management a snap.

You can also use different ClickUp views to monitor and analyze your strategy from all sides. Swap between views for every event, database, content calendar, and campaign so you can see what you need when you need it.

The best part? Most of ClickUp’s features are free to use.

We don’t mean that it has a free trial—we mean that you can sign up for the Free Forever plan without a credit card and start using the tools right away.

Examining promotion strategy examples from other businesses is one of the best ways to identify ways to improve yours. It’s even better if you can learn from a company that runs several successful campaigns to see what tools they’re using and how they do it.

Adhere Creative is an excellent example. Adhere is an award-winning B2B brand development and video content agency that relies on ClickUp for all things project management.

“I use ClickUp to manage every aspect of our agency’s production, from strategy, copy, and design to development, printing, and launch. Without ClickUp, we would be lost,” says Ericka Marett , the sole Project Manager at Adhere Creative.

Ericka uses ClickUp for everything from managing daily tasks to developing project estimates, timelines, and documents. With features like ClickUp’s Board view and individual to-do windows, she’s able to keep everyone on the same page for client marketing campaigns, promotions, and more. 

Adhere Creative doesn’t have just one example of how ClickUp has helped—Erika uses it to manage marketing campaigns successfully for dozens of clients. 🤩

Anyone running a business or handling promotion strategies in today’s marketing landscape knows things are changing. There’s a shift toward social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

These platforms have become essential for building brand awareness, fostering customer relationships, and driving sales.

This paradigm shift has revolutionized marketing, creating new ways to engage with diverse audiences through targeted video content.

You can use strategies like the following to improve your success rate in the increasingly digital marketing landscape: 

• A/B testing: Allows your brand to compare two versions of a landing page, marketing email, or paid ad to determine which performs better
• SEO: Involves strategies to improve website visibility and ranking in search engine results, increasing organic traffic and visibility 
• Targeted advertising: Relies on demographic and behavioral data to deliver tailored messages to specific audiences
• Customer relationship management: Makes organizing and tracking customer interactions easier
• Market research: Involves analyzing data to inform business decisions and strategies
• Data analysis: Comprises measuring and interpreting data from various sources to provide better insights and guide decision-making

Common FAQs

1. what are the 5 promotional strategies .

There are numerous promotional strategies to try, but five of the best include:

• Paid advertising

Promotion strategies are important because they allow you to communicate your business’s value proposition, attract customers, drive sales, and increase brand awareness in today’s competitive market.

3. How do you create a promotional strategy ?

Creating a promotional strategy involves steps including:

• Researching and developing an understanding of your target audience
• Analyzing content consumption by the target audience
• Selecting optimal channels for promotion
• Determining the costs of and budgeting for your marketing plan
• Evaluating your plan’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT)
• Developing and implementing your marketing plan

Ready, Set, Promote! 

A solid promotion strategy is essential to increase visibility, attract new customers, and drive sales. It enables targeted communication, fosters customer engagement, and helps secure a competitive edge. 🏆⭐

Unlock the power of organization and efficiency by leveraging ClickUp, the ultimate solution for optimizing all facets of your marketing projects.

From planning and execution to data analysis, our suite of customizable features will elevate your work from all directions.

See for yourself without spending a dime— sign up for ClickUp today .

Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.

Receive the latest WriteClick Newsletter updates.

Thanks for subscribing to our blog!

Please enter a valid email

• Free training & 24-hour support
• Serious about security & privacy
• 99.99% uptime the last 12 months

• Programmatic SEO
• Content Marketing
• Paid Advertising
• Performance Creative
• Crypto & Blockchain
• Case Studies
• Press & Media
• Write for Single Grain
• General Inquiries
• Leveling Up Podcast
• Marketing School Podcast
• Executive Mastermind

Maximize Growth Now

How to Create a Promotional Plan to Maximize Business Growth (with Examples & Strategies)

Updated July 2023.

You can elevate your business to new heights with a stellar promotional plan. In an increasingly competitive world, this tool has become indispensable for businesses big and small.

From identifying your target market to choosing a catchy promotion name, from selecting an effective promotion type to deciding on key messages and promotional products, we’ll journey through the creation of a powerful promotional plan.

Get ready to excel with our comprehensive guide and downloadable promotional plan template. You’re one step away from transforming your business goals into a reality!

Single Grain enables us to increase our impact without increasing our headcount

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

What is a promotional plan.

• Public relations
• Sales promotion
• Social media marketing
• Online marketing

Advertising

• Personal selling
• Conduct a SWOT Analysis

What Are the Main Components of a Promotional Plan?

• Define Your Target Audience
• Name Your Promotion
• Determine Your Promotion Type
• Craft Your Key Messages
• Create Your Promotional Products and Swag
• A Promotional Planning Template to Help You Get Started

Brand Promotion

6 types of marketing & sales promotion strategies to boost your sales.

• How to Create a Promotional Plan: A Final Recap

Before we dive deeper into the main components of a promotional plan, I think it’s absolutely necessary to understand what a promotional plan is. This will help us be more accurate in defining the future steps of a business plan, thus making it more likely for us to achieve our marketing objectives and grow.

A promotional plan is a strategic document that outlines your company’s marketing and advertising efforts over a specific period. It details the actions your business will take to promote its products or services to its target audience.

A promotional plan is an element of a marketing plan for a specific product or service. It includes the types of promotional methods you’ll use, such as social media marketing and print advertisements, as well as key components like target market and key messages.

Here are some of the key elements that you might find in a promotional plan:

• Objective : Clear, specific goals that the promotion seeks to achieve, such as increasing product awareness, driving sales, or attracting a new audience.
• Target Audience : Identification of the group of people who are most likely to be interested in the product or service. This can be based on demographic information, lifestyle, consumer behavior, and other factors.
• Promotion Name : A catchy name for the promotional campaign that aligns with the brand and resonates with the target audience.
• Promotion Type : The specific form of promotion that will be used. This might include advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations or digital marketing, among others.
• Promotion Mix : This refers to the combination of promotional tools and methods that will be used to reach the target audience. It might include a mix of traditional advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, event marketing, and more.
• Key Messages : The main points that the promotional campaign seeks to communicate to the target audience. This could include information about the product, the brand, or other important aspects.
• Promotional Products or Services : The specific products or services that will be promoted. These might be a new product, a seasonal offering, a special deal, etc.
• Budget : The financial resources allocated to implement the promotional plan. This should cover all costs associated with the promotion, such as advertising costs, production costs, and event costs.
• Timeline : The start and end dates of the promotion, including any important milestones or deadlines within the promotional period.
• Evaluation Metrics : The measures that will be used to determine the success of the promotional campaign. This could include sales data, website traffic, social media engagement, customer surveys, and more.

It’s essentially a roadmap that guides all of your promotional activities, helping to ensure they align with your overall business goals and objectives.

What Are Promotional Strategies?

As you can see from the definition above, this plan details the tools and you need to implement various promotion strategies. But what exactly are promotional strategies?

In a nutshell, promotional strategies are the tactics, techniques, and activities you use to promote your product or service. Promotional strategy examples can include:

Public Relations

Playing a major role in getting your key promotional messages out to as wide an audience as possible, Public Relations (PRs) uses various communications strategies designed to influence public perception and opinion of a brand, its products, or public-facing figures.

These strategies include:

• Media relations and pitching stories to journalists
• Organizing press conferences and media events
• Community engagement events covered by the media

Sales Promotion

Sales promotions typically involve enticing customers with a discount, freebie or other perk.

Examples include:

• Buy-one-get-one-free offers
• Percentage-off sales
• Limited-time only discounts
• Seasonal sales
• Free trial periods
• Free shipping when the cart total reaches a specific volume

Social Media Marketing

Few brands (if any) can truly thrive in today’s digital society without an effective social media presence.

With an array of social media platforms available, brands have unprecedented opportunities to connect with their target audience and drive engagement.

Examples of social media marketing include:

• Partnerships with social media influencers
• Creating and sharing relevant and useful content
• Running contests and giveaways
• Using paid social media advertising such as Facebook ads
• Improving brand loyalty and reputation by engaging with followers

Online Marketing

Online marketing can take many forms, including:

• Content such as blogs and videos
• Email marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Social media
• Affiliate marketing

Advertising remains a tried-and-true promotion method that continues to generate significant revenue for brands, even at a time when those brands have more marketing and promotional options at their disposal than ever before.

Examples of advertising as a promotional strategy can include:

• Display ads placed on websites and video sites such as YouTube
• Print advertising
• Television , radio and streaming media spots
• Billboards and street furniture (like bus benches) advertising

Personal Selling

Personal selling is all about building direct connections and relationships with potential customers. It’s a hands-on approach that involves face-to-face interactions and persuasive communication techniques such as:

• Presenting products at tradeshows and exhibitions
• Product demonstrations at locations your audience is likely to populate
• Networking at events
• Personalized lead generation and follow-ups

Together, these strategies can prove highly effective for achieving marketing goals relating to your website or digital presence.

Related Content:   10 Inspiring Examples of Promotional Campaign Videos for Startups

Conduct a SWOT Analysis for Your Promotional Plan

After having outlined your activities and marketing efforts, you then need to put your plan out there. What’s extremely important is to make sure that you conduct some sort of situation analysis or SWOT analysis.

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats:

To put it simply, such an analysis will help you track and measure the effectiveness of your promotion plan as well as your marketing plan as a whole.

Author’s Note:  Keep in mind that conducting a SWOT analysis can also be beneficial for your business’ content marketing strategy, social media plan, SEO, and – in general – any other actions that your marketing department might be taking, like creating a marketing plan template.

Measuring the results and monitoring your metrics will help you understand whether you’ve put some smart goals in place when designing your plans or if you should reconsider. It’ll also give you a clear idea of how close you are to achieving your marketing goals and what your future steps should be.

Simply put, to be aware and keep track of the results will help you make sure you’re not losing time or money on an ineffective promotional plan.

The promotion plan template below illustrates the main components you’ll need to use in your plan, including (we’ll go into details about each one in the next section):

• Target audience
• Name of your promotion
• Type of promotion
• Key messages
• Promotional products and swag
• Additional notes

This template illustrates various examples of promotional strategies inspired by a UK government promotional campaign that ran across the country after the reopening of restaurants. The campaign’s goal was to help the industry that had been hit hard by the pandemic:

How to Create a Promotional Plan

I’ll use the example of a fictitious London restaurant participating in this campaign to demonstrate how to create a promotional plan of your own in the following step-by-step tutorial.

1) Define Your Target Audience

No promotional plan can ever be successful if you don’t know who it is you’re promoting to. This is why it’s so important that you start this process by defining who your audience is and what they want.

In the free promotional strategy template included with this guide, you’ll see that the target audience doesn’t have a specific audience, as the campaign was essentially an appeal to the entire country.

That may be fine if you’re a national government with a bottomless budget, but let’s face it: The products and services produced by most businesses were never designed to appeal to everyone.

Whether you sell classy-but-comfortable business shoes to female executives or performance monitoring watches to marathon runners, practically every business has a specific ideal customer they want to reach.

So, before you do anything else, determine who that ideal customer is for your brand.

If your business is brand new, you’ll benefit from learning how to develop buyer personas , a process that can be invaluable for helping you think about the type of people your promotional marketing strategies are aimed towards:

If you’re already well-established, think about your long-term customers:

• Who are they?
• What do they like?
• What would appeal to them from a promotional stand point?

These insights into your target audience will make a world of difference when it comes to making informed decisions about the kind of promotional message that is most likely to hit home with your customers and the best approach to deliver that message.

To show you what this might look like, we can refer to our fictitious London restaurant, which might come up with the following:

Our target audience is young executives working in the nearby business complex. Most of our existing customers fit these audience demographics and we know that they value fast, efficient service. We also know that the majority of bookings and enquiries from this demographic are made on social media.

2) Name Your Promotion

Now that you know who your audience are, you need to give your promotion a name that will appeal to them.

“Eat Out to Help Out” was a great name for this campaign because it was catchy, memorable and appealed to people’s sense of patriotic duty in the aftermath of major crisis while also answering that fundamentally important question: “What’s in it for me?”

You mean all I have to do to help out my country is go to a restaurant for a hugely discounted meal? Sure, I’ll do that, sign me up!

To give a more recent example from here in the United States, Taco Bell’s “Freeing Taco Tuesday” campaign is fast gaining a lot of attention partly because it’s such a unique idea, but also because it genuinely engages the curiosity of its audience.

Why does Taco Tuesday need freeing? Who from? I don’t know! Tell me more Taco Bell, and tell me how I can help!

LeBron James was featured in an ad called “Taco Bleep,” which emphasized the campaign message: the absurdity of “Taco Tuesday” being trademarked:

This is what you’re trying to do by naming your promotion. Come up with something that grabs the attention of your audience, sticks in their mind, and compels them to want to take action, whether that action is signing a taco-related petition , eating at a restaurant, or buying a pair of shoes.

3) Determine Your Promotion Type

Next, you need to determine what type of promotion you’re planning for.

Some of the most effective promotion types  include:

• Discounts (percentage off or dollar off)
• Loyalty schemes
• Referral rewards
• Free shipping
• Spend a set amount and get a free product or service

To determine which promotion types are bested suited for your campaign, it pays to think about what your goals are.

With Eat Out to Help Out , restaurants were offering customers £10 off (almost $13 USD) per person:

This type of promotion would be classed as a discount and is the right approach for our restaurant, as it aligns with the business goal of getting more paying customers through the door and increasing profits.

However, for the aforementioned Taco Tuesday  campaign, a discount would be less effective as the main goal of this campaign is essentially boosting Taco Bell’s brand reputation and visibility by presenting themselves as “the good guys” who want to liberate the Taco Tuesday trademark from the evil clutches of their competitors.

If you were selling shoes, you might also run with (pun intended, of course) a discount promotion, while a company selling performance monitoring watches might run a promotion in which customers who upgrade to their newest device get an additional product for free.

4) Craft Your Key Messages

Your next task is to come up with a compelling marketing message that tells your audience what you want them to do and how they’ll benefit from doing it.

Again, the Eat Out to Help Out campaign did a good job with their message:  Support your local restaurant by eating out with a 50% discount on food or non-alcoholic drinks.

This one has it all.

It provides a clear call to action to eat out at a local restaurant and answers the “What’s in it for me?” question by telling people that they’ll benefit by enjoying a half-price meal .

Here, the word “support”   lends this promotional message added gravitas as it subtly tugs at our emotions and appeals to that part of human nature that makes us want to help others.

Your message should be equally as clear, concise and compelling as this one.

If you’re struggling with this, here are a couple more examples to get you inspired:

• Upgrade your TechX Performance Monitoring Watch to the latest new model and get a free pair of headphones.
• Save 50% on this season’s most popular shoes when you shop at Big Foot’s Shoe Store.

Both of these messages contain all the vital components.

They make it clear what action the audience should complete (upgrade their watch or shop at a certain shoe store), and they outline a clear benefit (save 50% or get some free headphones).

Each example also appeals to the audience’s emotions in different ways. The word “free” triggers a certain level of excitement in all of us, while the promise of a discount on “this season’s most popular shoes” appeals to customers who love staying up-to-date with the latest styles.

6) Create Your Promotional Plan’s Swag

Promotional products serve as a kind of distribution channel which help draw attention to your current campaign and your business as a whole.

What’s great about branded merchandise is that it can be almost anything, through the closer your swag ties into your campaign, the better.

In my hypothetical promotional campaign, I’m using promotional t-shirts  to convey my message and promotion name:

Promotional hats are also among the most popular branded products, so why not include them as well?

Both the t-shirts and hats can be worn by members of restaurant staff, but also be given to customers as a “thank you” gift.

Elsewhere, our shoe store might create high-quality, reusable bags that customers can take away their purchases in, while our company selling performance watches for marathon runners would naturally opt for branded running apparel to help boost their campaign’s visibility among their key demographic.

You might even choose to create a swag box  in which you put several useful items relating to the promotion and your brand:

When it comes to creating products of your own, keep the following tips in mind:

• The more useful your promotional items are to your target audience, the more they’ll be used, and therefore the more effective they’ll be at increasing brand recognition.
• Use your company’s logo and usual branding colors across your items. If your logo, website, and storefront all use a blue and white color scheme, don’t suddenly start giving away yellow and black t-shirts.

6) Take Notes

Creating a notes column in your promotional plan template will be a huge help when it comes to keeping track of new ideas or other relevant details that could help you run your campaign more effectively.

I’ve definitely used the notes column in my promotional plan template to write down a few additional ideas for promoting my campaign.

For example, I thought promotional banners outside the restaurant, alongside digital banners posted on social media platforms, would significantly help me bring more awareness to my campaign.

A Promotional Plan Template to Help You Get Started

After having broken down the components of a promotional plan, here’s the promotional plan example I promised I’d give you.

👉 Click here for access to the Promotional Planning Template 👈 ( be sure to save a copy to your own computer first ):

The columns are as discussed above and include all essential information about the promotion. Make sure to copy/download it first and then start using it to build your promotional plans!

Related Content: Just Do It: What We Can Learn from Nike’s $39B Marketing Strategy

Promotional Plan Examples

1) Johnston County 2022-2023 Marketing Plan

Johnston County in North Carolina put together a comprehensive marketing plan outlining how they plan to increase visitor numbers:

The plan outlines the challenges faced by the tourism board: “In year two of recovery from the pandemic, travel seems to be on the rise, however, new challenges continue to plague the tourism industry.”

To overcome those challenges, Johnson County first defines its target audiences and then sets forth a list of clearly defined marketing goals.

The plan then outlines the strategies they’ll use to achieve those goals, such as increasing email marketing efforts and upping the game in online paid advertising.

2) Viral Spiral Marketing Plan

Viral Spiral (VS) is a Taiwanese biotechnology company that used its marketing strategy to promote at-home covid testing kits:

Containing everything from an analysis of current market trends and the company’s competitors to a thorough SWOT analysis and detailed information on their promotional strategy, this is an excellent marketing plan example for those going to market with a new product.

1) Unicef PPC

An excellent example of a promotional strategy focused on advertising comes from Unicef:

The charity frequently uses pay-per-click advertising on YouTube and social media as part of its fundraising efforts.

If you read our round-up of multi-channel PPC case studies , you may recall that one campaign served display ads to around 5 million people, resulting in Unicef tripling their anticipated fundraising total.

2) Boston Red Sox Media Campaign

The Boston Red Sox had an image problem:

“Despite coming off two straight division titles, there was an inexplicable yet palpable “ho-humness” among the team’s fanbase that not even a new manager or a $100 million slugger could fix. We needed to find a way reignite the city’s passion for the team.”

Since a disengaged audience can harm brand reputation and sales, the Red Sox launched a new advertising campaign to foster a personal connection between the team and their fans:

“’More’ became a foundation for our work: the idea that to the city of Boston, baseball is more than just a game. And those who play for the team are more than a collection of names and uniform numbers. They’re our family. It was a deliberately intimate campaign that provided snapshots of the team and players, thereby giving fans a more personal connection with the team.”

The Opening Day spot earned over one million impressions within the first two weeks of airing.

1) Boohooman Personalized Promotions

In men’s fashion, boohooMAN was experiencing some frustrations when it first began sending SMS campaigns to customers:

• They used the channel mostly as a one-off on big shopping days such as Black Friday.
• They sent non-personalized messages to unsegmented customers.
• They sent these messages to largely inactive customers.

Their ROI was, as they stated, “subpar at best.”

So they created a new promotional plan in which they sent personalized SMS campaigns to drive more sales:

With messages relating to each customer’s purchase history, birthday and other key data, the company generated increased ROI on promotional activities 25-fold.

2) Industrial Tool Supplies Customer-First Approach

Further proof that focusing on your audience can lead to better sales comes courtesy of UK-based Industrial Tool Supplies :

A case study  showed that focusing on giving users the best shopping experience and putting customers front and center of every decision helped them increase orders by 21% and revenue by 23%.

1) Glossier Brand Promotion

This case study details how beauty company Glossier grew into a $1.2 billion enterprise by placing a heavy emphasis on branding in its promotional plans:

The company focused on getting to really know its audience and developing a unique signature style that proved irresistible to its target customers.

2) Visit Baton Rouge

Here’s another example of a tourism board making good use of its promotion plans. This time, it’s from the folks over in Louisiana who came up with a detailed campaign to promote their “Visit Baton Rouge” brand:

Their strategy involved a complete rebranding with a new logo, tagline, and vision that appealed to tourists and local Louisiana folk alike. They used the SWOT template for a deep analysis, deeply segmented their target audience, and outlined specific goals.

In the dynamic world of commerce, employing a diverse mix of marketing and sales promotion strategies is crucial for driving growth and achieving your revenue goals. These six strategies encompass a blend of paid and organic methods to attract, engage and convert your target audience.

We can help you skyrocket your sales and grow your business with these strategies:

• Paid advertising :  Harness the power of targeted advertising platforms to reach your ideal audience with compelling messages that drive conversions.
• Content marketing : Create and distribute engaging, informative and valuable content that attracts and retains a clearly defined audience — and ultimately drives profitable customer action.
• Sponsorships and Influencer Marketing :  Collaborate with reputable brands and individuals to tap into their established audiences and gain credibility in your industry.
• Email marketing :  Build strong relationships with your subscribers through personalized and relevant email campaigns that nurture leads and drive sales.
• Retargeting :  Reconnect with website visitors who have shown interest in your products or services by displaying targeted ads across the web.
• Referral marketing :  Encourage your existing customers to refer their friends, family, and colleagues to your business through incentives and rewards.

Final Recap: How to Create a Promotional Plan

Once again, here is your free Promotional Planning Template  ( be sure to save a copy to your own computer first! ).

In this post, we’ve discussed the definition and importance of a promotional plan, some of the main activities that such a plan might include, and what the components of a promotional plan should be in order to be concise and successful in achieving your goal.

After presenting the main components of a promotional plan, we’ve also shared with you a free promotional planning template.

If you’re ready to level up your business, Single Grain’s marketing experts  can help!👇

Additional content by  David Borgogni .

Get Your Free 2024 Growth Guide with Our Newsletter, Leveling Up

Subscribe to Leveling Up and receive a free 2024 Growth Guide in your inbox. These emails are brimming with marketing strategies that are working right now and must-have resources. Join our community of 15,000+ subscribers, including professionals from Amazon, Google, and Samsung.

IN Marketing 101 Top 10 Examples of SaaS Companies That Are Rocking It BY Joydeep Bhattacharya Get inspired by how these 10 examples of SaaS companies are redefining the tech landscape with insights into their successful business model. Read Article

IN Case Studies 9 Successful Digital Marketing Case Studies That Boosted Growth BY Eric Siu Marketing agencies can deliver better ROI than brands can. These digital marketing case studies will show you how we helped our clients.  Read Article

IN Blogging How to Write Hero Headlines to Skyrocket Click-Through Rates BY Ahmad Ben Titles are the key to content. Learn how to write headlines that grab attention and boost CTRs. Plus 10 formulas for irresistible headlines! Read Article

Unlock Industry-Leading Customer Acquisition Playbooks

Discover powerful acquisition tactics like Programmatic SEO - proven to drive millions of visitors.

Get Free Instant Access

8 Effective Online Marketing Tactics

That Have Generated 1,545%+ ROI for our Customers (and You Can Easily Use)

We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe.

Fill out the form below to kickstart dynamic strategy deployment for boosted growth.

“We can count on them to bring new ideas to the table consistently”

Jacqueline Foster , Demand Generation Marketing, Lever.co

Get The Latest Customer Acquisition Strategies

Get the latest customer acquisition strategies from the best companies

Which would you like to learn more about? (Check all that apply)

Are you looking for slow growth or fast growth?

“Single Grain enables us to increase our impact without increasing our headcount”

Kim Cooper , Director of Marketing, Amazon Alexa

Do you have the infrastructure to take on 2x, 5x, 10x scale?

“They act like an extension of our team, proactively fixing issues as they arise”

Samantha Goldman , Sr. Director of Marketing, CastLightHealth

How much are you spending on marketing per month right now?

“Their expertise has helped Nextiva grow its brand and overall business”

Yaniv Masjedi , CMO, Nextiva

Promotion Strategy: How to Promote Your Business [2023]

[Lee este artículo en español: Estrategias de Promoción ]

No wonder that promotion strategy is one of the most important processes in marketing .

In fact, it supports your marketing voices to reach your target audience, creates interest, and helps you to engage with them. If you want more traffic and conversions, then developing promotion strategies is critical.

Here’s the deal:

You’re going to find out how to promote your business and how to build a promotion strategy with actionable promotional tactics. Then, you will get a better understanding of content promotion, digital advertising, mobile marketing, and public relations.

Everything here applies to a GREAT promotion strategy in 2023.

So let’s begin!

Promotion Strategy Fundamentals

Promotion strategy overview, content promotion, digital advertising, mobile marketing, public relations, promotional marketing metrics​.

Business promotion is the first marketing communication with customers. There are too many companies talking about their products and services. So you must create a well-crafted road map for your promotion to reach out to the right audience and convert them into your customers.

In this chapter, you’re going to learn the basics of a promotion strategy and why it is so important for your marketing success.

What is a promotion strategy?

A promotion strategy is an actionable plan to influence people about your business, generate more leads, and boost customer engagement. It visualizes how to perform your marketing strategy and communication, who to target as your audience, and where and when to execute the promotion plan.

Many marketers spend more on business promotion each year, but they receive less. There are too many options and marketing voices, so you have to make sure that your messages are really reaching the people you want to approach when you promote your business.

What’s more, it is very difficult to convert people into customers without resonating marketing voices to create emotional connections and arouse interests and demands to your offers.

Role of promotions

Business promotion is one of the 4 P’s of the marketing mix. It is a part of marketing communication which reaches your target market to gain awareness and foster conversation with prospects and customers.

Promotion helps you draw your target’s attention, create interest in your products and services, generate demands, and encourage them to purchase from you.

The following are the four main roles of promotion:

• Build awareness – Making your target audience aware of your products and services. You must identify your target audience, your promotional marketing messages, and your outreach strategies.
• Foster interests – Gaining their interests in your business. It requires a well-designed content marketing strategy to provide enough information for lead nurturing, and show uniqueness for differentiation from competitors.
• Generate demand – Making your products and services desirable. You can share great features and benefits, and create an emotional connection with your prospect.
• Induce prospects to take action – Placing a call-to-action for your target to easily engage and find the next steps. Anywhere you can position to drive conversions, such as your website, digital advertising, and social media.

As you can see, these are following the A.I.D.A. marketing models. It means that promotion can contribute to all the consumers buying processes.

Besides, it will help you to establish a stronger relationship and cultivate the repeated customer to stay longer with you.

Types of promotion

There are many promotional marketing approaches where you can attract your prospects and customers and draw people into the A.I.D.A. process. From traditional promotions like face-to-face selling to digital advertising and the customer loyalty program.

The key promotion types are:

• Personal (face-to-face) selling – Salespeople from a company give you a sales presentation in person to present their offer. Unlike the other approaches, it is easier to build relationships with you. i.e.) Sales meeting, sampling, telemarketing, etc.
• Traditional advertising – You can use any paid advertisements to reach a bigger audience and prompt short-term engagement and sales. It is one-to-one marketing, and its costs are based on the bidding. i.e.) Print ads, billboards, TV, radio, etc.
• Direct marketing – It is direct communication with a highly targeted audience through marketing channels. It has more chances to get quick feedback and retain customer relationships. i.e.) Emails, direct mail, digital ads, etc.
• Sales promotion – Performing a short-term marketing campaign to gain attention and encourage conversion or purchase. You can get immediate responses and interactive, but it’s not good for developing a long-term relationship. i.e.) Contests, coupons, flash sales, sweepstakes, etc.
• Public relations – To build a good corporate image and cultivate a stronger customer relationship, you can provide appropriate information and handle both positive and negative voices from consumers. i.e.) Newspaper/magazine articles, seminars, speeches, etc.
• B2B promotions – a B2B company offers materials and services that other businesses need to work and get benefits. It focuses on how people will benefit from using your offers. i.e.) Trade shows, case studies, online courses, etc.
• Word-of-mouth marketing – It is the process of motivating people to share information about your products and services with others. Since people trust words from close people more than from a company, it will bring qualified leads. i.e.) Referral program, customer reviews, influencer marketing, etc.
• Customer loyalty program – a Customer loyalty program induces your current customers to make frequent purchases and retain them, which brings you great profits in the long run. i.e.) Reward programs, referral incentives, etc.

You’ve got what a promotion strategy is and what you can do. Before we go any further, let me explain why it is critical for your business.

Why is a promotion strategy so important?

Business promotion is one of the most critical processes in marketing. It focuses on how to attract the right audience to your business, introduce your product and service effectively, and convince people to buy it.

Back to what I was saying, with a great promotion strategy you can drive prospects from the awareness stage into the action stage if you do it right. It allows you to create strong brand awareness, generate leads and build a long-term relationship with your target audience.

Besides, developing a promotion strategy helps you to cut unnecessary promotion costs. This is due to the fact that you’ll target the right audience instead of marketing anyone out there. And they will start recognizing you more and choose you over the competition.

By creating a good corporate image in promotions, you can also build a better reputation that will bring more benefits for your business, like word-of-mouth.

Benefits of a promotion strategy

A promotion strategy will be the compass for your promotion. And it will have a great impact on the consumer decision-making process.

These are the key benefits of a promotion strategy:

• Target the right audience.
• Gain brand awareness.
• Attract prospects and customers.
• Publish your promotion at the best time.
• Increase qualified customer traffic.
• Show differentiation from competitors.
• Offer more value to your customers.
• Engage with your target audience.
• Drive customer decision-making.
• Find potential partnerships.
• Create customer relationships.
• Build your reputation.
• Improve word-of-mouth opportunities.
• Stay ahead of the competition on market share.
• Grow sales and profits.

Thus, the potential benefits you’ll get from a promotion strategy are huge and you don’t want to miss them! That’s why you need to craft a well-designed promotion strategy and ensure your success.

So, how do you create one for your promotion success?

Don’t worry! I’ll walk you through the whole process in the next chapter.

In this chapter, I’ll show you the value of each step and the best way to set a promotion strategy for your business. If you are ready to start learning how to promote your business, you are in the right place. Keep reading, and you will discover all the possible ways to promote your business.

Great success without a strategy is impossible on business unless you’re super lucky.

Having a solid strategy helps you to go through an effective path for your goals and see where you’re in the campaign and what you have to do. It is vital not only when you execute and improve your plan, but especially when you face difficulties and obstacles.

Therefore, I would like to share some promotional tactics on business promotion strategy to make it easier for you to put them into practice.

Promotion trends and terms

But before we go into that, I would like to share some terms of the promotion trends. Understanding these trends and adapting them to your approach might help you to beat the competition and stay one step ahead.

• Artificial intelligence (AI) – In digital marketing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables you to predict customer behavior, create content, personalize customer experience, manage promotion and optimize your performance. It makes it easier for you to take any marketing data, analyze it and learn from it, and provide better solutions and results. Read more about Artificial Intelligence .
• Chatbot – A chatbot is a type of conversational AI that interacts with people through a text or voice interface. Using chatbots in your marketing allows you to offer 24/7/365 customer service and enhances customer satisfaction. What’s more, it saves you time and money. Read more about Chatbot .
• Customer experience email marketing – Email marketing is still the top way to drive qualified traffic and generate leads. Especially, creating personalized emails is becoming a must-have tactic to gain better recognition and engagement. Make sure to focus on providing great customer experience and develop relationships.
• Micro-influencer – Continuing from last year, influencer marketing will dominate 2023 and grow even more. Among the movements, you need to give special attention to Micro-influencers. They use social media and have a bigger impact than top influencers. People trust that micro-influencers use a product or service in their posts without having a sponsorship with brands (they don’t post for advertisement). Read more about Micro-Influencers .
• Messenger Ads and In-App Ads – As more than half of online traffic comes from mobile devices, mobile advertising will stay on top of marketing communication. There are many types of mobile advertising, but in particular, messenger ads and in-app ads are on the rise. They show ads which have more visibility and engage better with users.
• Video content – Video content has the highest click-through rate of all digital formats. As you know, it dominated digital advertising like YouTube and short videos on other social media last year, and more and more companies are investing in it to promote their businesses. Read more about Video Contents .
• Mobile coupons – As the redemption of coupons has increased and most of them can be carried out on mobile devices, you cannot ignore them. They have a great impact on consumers buying decision process and boost sales. Also, you can acquire customer data easily and use it for further approach. Read more about Mobile Coupons .

I hope these trends and are helpful when you craft your strategies. Just keep in mind that they might affect your promotion.

How to promote your business: Build your promotion strategy

Now you’re good to start developing your promotion strategy.

Here is the step-by-step process to successfully promote your business using a great promotion strategy. I’ve also made a list of all the things to do for a successful promotion. In each step, you will find tips and some pieces of advice that will help you in the process. Following this guide on how to promote your business, you are closer to building a winning promotion strategy.

1. Set Your Promotional Goals.

Goal-setting is vital to your promotion success. It will give you a sense of direction and motivate you to be productive and achieve your goals efficiently. Think about what you want to achieve with it and establish your promotional goals. If you set goals that you cannot control or that are dependant on others, your goals may block off your progress and waste your time and money. So, check the following goal-setting tips to ensure your promotion will work effectively.

Define S.M.A.R.T. goals

There’s a reason why people follow S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting. Simply because it works. Specific goals make it easier for you to create detailed action plans and achieve them. A measurable plan visualizes your progress and helps you to stay on track. Achievable goals motivate you to focus on tasks and improve your progress. Realistic goals lead you to accomplish your progress and avoid a big failure. Time-bound goals give you a sense of urgency to achieve the goals and ensure your plan completes on time.

Align the goals with your overall marketing strategies

Review your overall marketing strategies. Since if your promotion goals don’t fit in with the other 3 P’s of marketing mix strategies, your promotion strategies won’t work. Consider how your price and product strategies are devised and influence your place strategies.

Determine what you want to achieve with promotion

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, there are a number of potential benefits on a promotion strategy. Such as, providing features and the functionality of your product to create interests, turning your one-time customers into loyal customers, or beating your competitors on customer acquisition. You can get ideas from those advantages to set your goals.

Keep it simple and small

Your goals can be big, but you must keep them simple and break them down into small goals. That helps you to stay focused and certainly attain your goals. Like you have yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, and daily goals. It allows you to create action steps that assist you to reach your goals.

Set up your success metrics to measure

Once your goals are set, you should determine what metrics to measure for your promotion success. If your goal is to increase customer traffic, you need to get data on traffic growth, traffic sources, organic keywords, etc. The metrics you should track vary depending on your goals, so work on them right after goal-setting.

Brainstorm what call-to-actions to use

When you set your promotional goals, start thinking about how you can make your prospects take a specific action. Since you want them to do something, you’re going to promote your business. Crafting an effective call-to-action is the key to achieve your goals. Brainstorm what action you want them to take, and what content you can prepare for the promotion.

Important note:

Success without having a strategy is impossible on business. It’s how you keep trying to achieve your goals and put your efforts at the right place in the right direction.

Make sure that you take enough time to set goals and design your strategies for what you’re going to achieve.

2. Make Your Budget Plan.

When you think about budgeting, it’s important to balance your budget and your goals. Depending on them, determine how much you’re going to spend on each promotion. Even if you choose online promotion, which is low-cost, interactive, and effective for targeting and measurement, you’ll still want to cut down costs. These are some budgeting tips.

Prioritize your goals

When you have a small budget, prioritizing your goals and strategies can help you cut down on costs and achieve the desired goals at least. Once the target goals are taken care of, then you will be able to move forward to the rest.

Schedule your promotion

To control your budget, you can specify the time and limit your promotion schedule, especially with digital advertising. Since you can select your promotion’s timing, you can restrict the time to display your promotion.

Use geotargeting

Another effective way to reduce your cost is geotargeting. It allows you to target your audience by geographic locations and deliver them your content effectively. For example, local PPC is to attract local prospective customers.

Choose your conditions carefully

When you make digital advertising, there are a variety of settings by goals and plans to promote your business. For instance, you can select the conditions of “pay-per-conversions” as you pay when your prospects convert, rather than when they click.

3. Define Your Target Market.

Narrowing down your target market can cut your promotion costs down and help you to implement effective measures. If you aim for the wrong target market, you’ll not only spend time and money for nothing, but it will also move you away from success. To avoid this, you need to define what’s your target market and seek your marketing communication opportunities.

Understand your current target market

First, you have to evaluate your current promotion and analyze it for opportunities and gaps. It gives you ideas of what to aim for a successful promotion. If your current plan is not working well, then you need to come up with a way to break through the situation by targeting a specific segment or changing it.

Conduct a SWOT analysis

What are your competitive advantages and weaknesses? A SWOT analysis helps you to look at yourself from an outsider’s perspective and make smart decisions. You can build strategies around your strengths and opportunities to take advantage of them. Don’t forget to consider the threads your targeting has.

Sharpen your target market

Setting your target in as much detail as possible leads you to implement your promotion effectively. You can consider it by many factors, such as location, gender, interests, income level, etc. with marketing analytics tools. Check out your current customer base, it should give you an idea of who to market and the details of the persona.

Research your target market

To provide better marketing communication, you should find out their preferences and their pains at least. Without understanding your target market, grabbing their attention and interests is not going to be a piece of cake. You can ask directly to the target, check it on your analytics tools, or carry out a survey.

Learn your competitor’s strategies

Studying your competition allows you to build your strategies around their weaknesses and beat them by doing better. You’re targeting the same people as them. Thus, you should look at their strategies carefully, from their messages and channels to their top-performing content.

Make sure that you fully understand your target market to grab their attention to your business promotion. By putting yourself in their shoes, you will be able to choose compelling words and call-to-actions that reach their heart.

4. Determine Your Promotion Types.

Before creating your promotion message, you need to select what types of promotion you’re going to use based on your target audience.

If you’re looking for O2O marketing, consider implementing local SEO and creating a location-based service on mobile. 

Based on your goals and what you’re capable of, select your promotion types. If your budget allows, you can develop cross-channel promotions.

5. Develop Your Marketing Messages in Your Promotion.

Now that you have a better understanding of your target market and promotion channels, it’s time to build your marketing message in your promotion.

Your marketing message is one of the most important components in a promotion strategy. It impresses people, tells them how you can solve their pains, and gives them a call to action.

People won’t pay attention to your promotion unless you have powerful messages that attract your target audience and make them want to know more about you.

Here are some promotional tactics to craft powerful marketing messages:

Look at what pains your target market has

In the previous step, you’ve researched your target market and understood their pain points. To make your marketing messages persuasive, you need to face the problems your target market cares about the most. And then think about how you can present solutions from their perspective. Without understanding their pains, you won’t be able to deliver marketing messages that reach their hearts.

List out the value and benefits that you can offer

Make a list of the value that you can offer and the benefits that match your target market’s pain points. This will ensure you offer what your target market needs. That is to say, benefit-driven solutions. To appeal to your prospects effectively, it is key to focus on those benefits that can solve their problems over what you do.

Highlight your competitive advantages

In addition, your marketing message should contain a differentiation from your competitors. If there’s nothing you can convince people about why you are the best choice for a type of products/services, they won’t choose you over the competition. Thus, you must highlight what are your competitive advantages to show your uniqueness.

Prove that you’ve solved their suffering

Social proof makes your business more trustworthy and has an impact on influencing people. As social proof like reviews and testimonials work, you should prove that your products and services have gotten results. Collect proofs that your target market wants to hear about.

Make your message clear and sharp

The marketing messages in your business promotion strategy must convey the main idea to your target audience and communicate well. If the message is too long and deep, people will not get the point and take time to respond. Keep your message as clear as possible and make it sharp!

Research keywords that your target market searches for

Understanding what keywords your prospects search for in search engines is decisive to attract them and make your message persuasive. Besides, it helps you to increase your visibility and deliver your content to your target audience if your promotion is online. Don’t forget to work on SEO.

Change your message depending on channels

Based on where your target market is and how effective your message can be delivered, you choose your target channels and create your messaging. Check out the rules and regulations that each channel has, like the limits on the number of characters and video length.

Come up with ideas for content creation

While you’re making your marketing message, start thinking about content creation. To make your promotion stand out, seek the best way to achieve your promotional goals. If your goal is to build awareness, you should give enough information and show your values without sales pressure.

6. Build Your Promotional Tactics.

Developing your promotion strategy is to figure out how you are going to achieve your promotional goals and make a scenario of how you build awareness, get your target audience to be interested in your business, and turn them into customers. Don’t forget to develop strategies that focus on results for your business!

Visualize your progress

Visualizing your workflow allows you to see a bigger picture, prioritize your goals, and focus on your plan. It also helps you to improve teamwork since it is easy for anyone to grasp what’s going on in a project, share what you’ve done and contact others when needed.

Find the best time to execute

Needless to say, timing influences results. Even if you have perfect strategies and sources, bad timing can destroy your opportunity for success. Use analytics tools or spy on competitors to seek the best time to run your promotion.

Commit to a specific time frame and deadlines

It is wise to specify a time frame for your promotion. Since it gives you an idea of how much work you need to put into the marketing campaign and when each task needs to be completed. Remember to overestimate a little bit to ensure your campaign accomplishes on time.

Create a sense of urgency

A sense of urgency makes people feel anxiety for losing a great offer if they don’t act right away or within the time limits. It works especially with promotional offers. You can run a limited time or limited quantity promotion to make conversions and sales.

Make leads for content share

A great way of promoting your business is to let others share your content. Encourage the people who are interested in your promotion to share, interact or even give reviews. You can also consider influencers to promote your content to a wide range of audiences.

7. Execute and Measure Your Promotion Efforts

Now is finally the time to spread your promotion. After starting your promotion, you always need to track your performance so that you will develop your strong points and work on the prompt correction when something goes wrong. If you notice errors and mistakes at an early time, it would be easier to adjust your strategy and avoid a big failure.

Review your goals on a regular basis

Checking your goals frequently helps you to motivate yourself to tackle each task of the campaign, commit to the plan, and come up with a better idea to improve your promotion. What’s more, it avoids losing focus on the goals and end up just following directions.

Check if you’re tracking the right metrics

If you’re not tracking the right metrics, you’re missing the opportunity to grow and improve. To see if your chosen metrics are the right ones for your goals, you need to confirm how the metrics relate to your goals and how your promotion affects the metrics.

Don’t judge without enough data

Sometimes it’s hard to get enough data in a short period of time, and people reach a conclusion at an early stage. Go for a growth rate instead of counting the numbers in that case. You will be able to see how your performance is, what’s working, and what isn’t working properly.

Stay flexible and adjustable

To improve your performance, you must be flexible and make changes in real-time. Because most of the promotion is time and cost-consuming, it’s wise to make adjustments whenever needed and perform your best promotion.

I hope those step-by-step promotional tactics are helpful when you create a promotion strategy. All you need to do is to apply them to your promotional campaign!

In the next chapter, I would like to share more details about digital advertising to help you win the promotion battle!

Keep reading and you’ll find actionable business promotion tactics…

To maximize content marketing which allows you to grab and keep the attention of your audience, it is critical to promote your content to the right target who is interested in your business and really consumes it. So, you will need a strong content promotion strategy.

In this chapter, you’re going to learn how to promote your content with eight proven tactics.

What is Content Promotion?

Content promotion is one of the key marketing processes to expose your business and earn an actual audience for your content. It helps you to grow your traffic and gain results quicker.

However, many people fail to get their content in front of a target audience who cares about it. This is because most businesses fail to build the correct content promotion strategy. If your content doesn’t lead to further engagement, you might be delivering it to the wrong people and wasting your effort in creating it.

To avoid this, you must outreach to a qualified audience and engage with them efficiently.

The bottom line

For successful content promotion, it is critical to reach out to the people who can have an impact into your business and share your content.

Email Subscription

Email subscription is one of the most effective ways to receive news and updates. It is cost-effective and helps you to do direct marketing. It’s a great tool and an essential part in every content promotion strategy.

Since most people who subscribe to your newsletters are already interested in your business (maybe some of them are not reading your emails though), they can be your potential customers and the actual readers of your emails.

In short, sharing your content to your subscribers is a must. If you don’t, you’re missing out on the best prospects and customers who care about what you have to say.

It means that it is essential to set up an email subscription form on your website. If you don’t have one, you can create yours easily with email marketing tools like OptinMonster .

Now that you understand the importance of email subscription in content promotion, it’s time to grow your email list.

However, acquiring new email addresses isn’t easy. To make that happen, you also need to offer something they would like to receive in return.

For example, you can create gated content in which you ask readers for their submission to your form and they get premium or bonus content in exchange.

But don’t forget that gaining email addresses is the first step, it shouldn’t be your goal. From then, you will need to foster a strong relationship.

If you would like to build your email list, read these proven tactics to develop an email list .

Blogger outreach (Link building)

This is one of the most strategic and efficient approaches to spread your business to other audiences and get quality backlinks . Backlinks are essential in content promotion.

It sounds quite difficult but it is actually simple:

You will reach out to bloggers who might want to include your content in their articles. So, your content gets promoted by others to their followers and you will receive quality traffic without extra advertising.

To make this happen, you need to research who shares content like the one you want to promote. Thus, you will grow your outreach list, if you send an email to them.

You can use Buzzsumo to find out who shares content like yours. Since it has great filters to find key influencers and your target audience, you can save tons of time looking for influential bloggers.

Also, from an SEO point of view, I recommend you check out Ahrefs ’ Domain Rating (DR). The domain rating shows backlink profile strength and searches traffic size.

A backlink from a higher authority domain will help you to rank your content up on Google. So you’d better outreach the highest DR bloggers.

Then, it’s time to move onto the most important part in blogger outreach; reaching out via emails.

It is vital to explain why you’re sending them out to people and make it easy for them to check your content out. Make sure to keep your message simple but seize the point.

Here are some great tips when you outreach your influencers via email .

And don’t forget to avoid being a hard sell!

Blogger outreach is one of the surefire ways to boost your online visibility and backlinks and gain credibility and promote your content.

Remember: After spotting relevant bloggers, check what they can bring to your business and outreach them strategically. And make sure to add value to them and offer a win-win situation.

Content syndication networks

Another great way of promoting your content is to leverage forums where people share great resources and exchange thoughts.

Content syndication is a content marketing tactic of republishing content on third-party websites, including guest-posting. It brings you fantastic opportunities to expose your content to a broader audience.

Normally content syndication networks require just sign-up or becoming a member for content promotion. Then, you will republish your content on the communities and that will help you to increase your visibility and credibility.

There are several content share communities you should try in, such as:

• StumbleUpon
• GrowthHackers
• SocialMediaToday
• Inbound.org
• BlogCatalog

With content syndication, your content may not only get a backlink from third-party sites, but you will also benefit from SEO performance.

To get those results, seek the best community and the best ways to promote your content. If you’re new to this, try some and see if it’s worthy for your content promotion strategy or not.

SEO content

Needless to say, SEO will help you to spread your online business in an effective and steady manner.

When your content ranks in a higher position on search engine result pages, you will not only get lots of traffic without promotions, but you will also create brand awareness.

So, it is critical to optimize your online content for SEO. From keyword research to page loading time, you have a bunch of things to complete to gain a better position on SERPs.

For example:

These two posts from Faverie, a fashion eCommerce, “ Types of Shoes ” and “ 70s Fashion ” have experienced tremendous growth in a short period of time.

The former started getting some traffic in just six months after publication (August 19, 2021). This was one of the first blog posts in a new domain with zero authority. This is generally a great result for a new site. Yet, what surprises me the most is how much it grew in the first year.

As to the “70s Fashion” blog post, has started to grow traffic just in the first month after publication (April 10, 2022). It is already showing amazing results by the time been.

When you create high-quality content and have a great SEO strategy, you can significantly improve your website’s traffic in a short period of time. These two strategies together are critical to success. What’s more, they’ll help you to reach your target audience organically.

To complete your content to be SEO friendly, use SEO tools that tell you how to improve.

There are plenty of tools that can help you with your marketing efforts, and you do not have to spend a dollar.

In particular, the following elements are the ones you need to pay attention to for on-page SEO:

• Meta description.
• Website optimization.

SEO is essential for online business. To learn SEO and get more organic traffic, you can watch this powerful SEO checklist video:

Content update

Content update gives you another chance to promote and drive traffic to your existing content again and gain new audiences.

As time goes by, it is true that some of the information on your content becomes old-fashioned or no longer useful. That’s when you must focus more on updating your blog rather than creating new posts.

For example, you can add up-to-date information such as the latest statistics and trends. Many people search for fresh information like “keywords 2023, ” so I recommend you to include this data to get easily found.

You can create checklists and cheat sheets to upgrade your content. Those additions mostly improve user experience and their loyalty.

Take some time to give a fresh air to your content and be a great resource for your audience!

Content transformation

Content transformation is an advanced technique in content marketing that turns your content into a different format. It captures more opportunities for your business and increases your SEO performance.

Repurposing existing content helps you to reach a new audience and find the best formats to engage with your audience. This is worth almost any content promotion strategy.

Although the most popular way of content transformation is to convert a blog post into a video, here there are a few examples of content transformation:

• Infographic.
• Slideshare.
• Online course.

Like content update, it is very important to look back at your old content and keep adding valuable sources for your audience.

Social media

In content promotion, you cannot forget about the power of social media. It’s one of the easiest ways to increase traffic to your content and improve brand perception .

There are many tactics to boost traffic from social media:

• Impress your audience with visuals.
• Share your content at the optimal time.
• Engage with your audience consistently.
• Optimize your content for mobile.
• Make your content easy to share.
• Add compelling call-to-actions.
• Use social media advertising.

Social media is a fantastic approach to content promotion. Once you share valuable content on social media, it has a great possibility to get viral and maximize your efforts.

Don’t forget to mention your sources and the influencers that are related to your content when you share! They might reshare your post.

Paid advertisement

At last, getting help from a paid advertisement will promote your content faster and effectively. Especially, digital advertising is more cost-effective than traditional advertising.

There are many ways of digital advertising: display advertising, search advertising, social media advertising, video advertising, and more.

With digital advertising, you can greatly benefit and grow your business. That’s why I’m going to explain it more in detail in the next chapter.

Digital advertising allows you to deliver advertisements to target segments that you subdivide for your target prospects at a low cost. It makes it easier for you to measure what kind of effects it brings due to its interactivity. It’s a powerful promotion tactic.

In this chapter, I’ll cover the basics and seven types of digital advertising.

What is digital advertising?

Digital advertising refers to any promotional advertisements on digital mediums. It is the most cost-effective way for digital marketers to reach a target audience and improve their ROI.

You can creatively practice storytelling, enhance personalization to maximize customer experience, and leave a strong impression in the audience’s mind.

What differentiates it from traditional advertising the most is that digital advertising can creatively drive interaction and engagement. Since it encourages interaction, it makes it easier for you to keep your target audience engaged and drive them to take the actions that you have designed.

As you can see, using digital advertising helps you to provide enough information to manipulate people’s minds and emotions. Thus, you will improve customer experience.

Benefits of digital advertising

Digital advertising has so many advantages for promoting your business, besides its interactivity.

For example, digital advertising gives you a valuable insight that allows you to see how many people have seen your ad, how many of them engaged with it, what is the demographic information of those people, and more.

Besides, since you can access the data in real-time, you’ll be able to vary your promotion approaches with the situation and respond in real-time.

Let’s sum up what you can expect:

• Cost-effective.
• Effective targeting.
• Access to data and insights.
• Trackable and measurable results.
• Personalized approach.
• Interactive.
• Higher conversion rate.
• Obtain valuable user insights.
• Qualified customer traffic.
• Flexibility to change and make an adjustment.
• Great ROI and ROAS.
• In control of your budget.
• Improving Ad formats every year.
• Mobile engagement.

Thus, digital advertising can maximize the effectiveness of your promotional marketing efforts and boost your conversions and sales efficiently.

Want to know more about the types of digital advertising?

Let me explain the main options and help you find the best way to promote your business.

Display Ads

It is a paid advertisement on third-party platforms (websites, mobile apps, etc.) including banner ads, rich media ads, and video ads . An example of display ads is the Google Display Network, which allows you to place your ads in websites using Google AdSense.

With display ads, you are targeting people by demographics and interests. You can also use it to retarget prospects and customers.

This is different from search engine marketing which focuses on displaying ads on search engine result pages.

Be aware that there are ad blockers that remove ads and prevent users from seeing your ads.

It is a popular online advertising form and often shows up at the top side, or in the middle of a webpage. It shows your ads to a specific target market with levels of targeting so that you can improve conversion rates strategically.

To get clicks, there are several things to consider: size, place, value proposition, image, CTA buttons, and more.

For more details, check out this ultimate guide to display advertising .

Rich media ads

Rich media ads are a kind of display advertising. Besides, they are a highly creative and innovative way to impress your audience and generate leads. It gives you the flexibility to promote your business and offers interactivity with the ads.

With rich media ads, you can tell your brand’s story dynamically, drive engagement and achieve higher CTR and ROI. What’s more, it can improve brand experience and make your ads memorable!

There are many rich media advertising formats:

• Rich media interstitial ads.
• Rich media (floating) banner ads.
• Interactive rich media banner ads.
• Expandable banner media ads.
• Pushdown rich media ads.
• Pop-up ads.
• Slider-rich media ads.
• Rich media billboard.
• Rich media video.

Read this rich media ads guide to make the most out of them.

Search advertising

Search ads are one of the most popular methods in online advertising where you can target a certain audience who searches for specific keywords or phrases. As you know, these advertisements are displayed at the top of SERPs that get most clicks.

Thus, using search advertising you can target a highly relevant audience who already has search-intent and your ads can enhance better CTR and conversions.

However, search advertising gets expensive if you’re targeting highly competitive keywords. Don’t forget to check the value of your keywords and look for the best options considering your budget!

Pay-per-click (PPC)

PPC is a paid advertising in which advertisers pay each time a searcher clicks on their ads. So even if you’re a small business, you can buy traffic for your website to convert and make sales.

To make it work, you need to study the Quality score which is Google’s rating of the quality and relevancy on the combination of your keywords and PPC ads.

You can also test whether your keyword ideas will work using PPC advertising. It will help you to build better SEO pages and improve your ads.

But here’s the scary part:

As the name (per-click) goes, you have to pay when someone clicks. If you’re targeting a broad keyword, you may end up finishing your budget without enough results.

Put a lot of thoughts on your bid strategy, targeting, and keywords to make a wise decision. If you’re not familiar with PPC advertising, you can check this guide to get a better understanding of what it is and how it works .

Shopping Ads

If you sell products or run an e-commerce website, creating shopping ads for search engines is the perfect way to increase your visibility and drive qualified traffic.

Shopping ads showcase and promote your products at the top of the SERPs. You have a great opportunity to display your products besides the web page results and attract your prospects with a product image on SERPs.

Social media advertising

Social media advertising is one of the most powerful and cost-effective digital advertising methods. Due to a great number of active users on social media, you can reach a bigger audience.

With this kind of advertising, it’s easy to catch users’ attention since people on social media normally pay attention to all the content in their feed, unlike looking for something in mind on search engines.

What’s more, social media advertising allows you to target or retarget specific segments by more accurate user information like their interests, geographics, and connections. Thanks to the effective targeting setting, it increases brand recognition and drives higher conversion rates.

But here’s the problem. Social media advertising is a great way of drawing users’ attention, but it may be less likely to convert. Because social media cannot track users’ real-life; and information on social media might not be accurate. Also, even if you target the right audience for your business and they wish to use your products or services, they may not have time or budget.

YouTube video ads

Needless to say, YouTube is the best and easiest platform for video marketing to generate traffic, market, and promote your business. You can reach a large number of your audience, and a video is sharable like other social media content.

Moreover, search engines love video content and YouTube helps you to boost search engine rankings. Thus, it is a great opportunity to get your content viral and grow brand awareness.

The following are the three main types of YouTube video ads:

• TrueView Ads (In-Stream ads and Video Discovery ads).
• Pre-Roll Ads.
• Bumpers Ads.

For more information about YouTube video advertising ads, check this comprehensive guide .

Native advertising

Native advertising consists of a paid advertisement that doesn’t make people feel “I’m watching an advert,” even though the functions are almost the same.

Many people skip and ignore advertising, but with native advertising, people don’t see your ads as advertisements. So they will naturally consume your content.

An example of native advertising is the sponsored content on social media. It shows up as an in-feed unit and promotes ads in a similar form as the other organic content.

Here are the main six native advertising types:

• In-feed units.
• Paid search ads.
• Promoted listings.
• Content recommendation widgets.
• In-ad with native element.
• Custom content ads.

You can read this guide for more information about native ads .

Email advertising

Email advertising is one of the top performing and cost-effective marketing approaches. It allows you to place your ads into newsletters by leveraging your email list. Besides, you can send personalized messages with a flexible design.

Mostly, email advertising uses opt-in or permission-based marketing. It means that most recipients already show interest in your business so that they are more likely to engage with the advertising you offer and convert.

However, here’re huge challenges for marketers to improve open rates. Since it is easy for users to arrange a spam filter setting, your emails might not be delivered and your subscribers don’t even notice your emails. Remember to keep your email list up-to-date and build relationships to constantly get your messages consumed.

Video advertising

It is the fastest growing advertising format. Since it can carry so much information for a short period and impact on the audience’s mind, video advertising is a smart marketing approach to take.

With video advertising, you can introduce your products and services in a way that’s easy to understand for viewers, and it creates emotional triggers to engage with the ads.

Now that we are exposed to many video ads, if you make a poor quality video advertising, your audience will notice the level of your quality and that determines whether they will be interested in your business. So, be creative and come up with well-designed ads that convert.

Here are the following key options in video advertising:

• In-stream ads (Linear / Non-linear).
• Out stream in-read video ads (In-page / In-banner / In-text).
• Interactive video ads.
• In-game video ads.
• TV video ads.

To understand each video advertising option, read this great post about video ads .

Remarketing and Retargeting

At last, I would like to talk about remarketing and retargeting. Both are very effective marketing tactics to reach out to people who have shown interest in your business.

Leveraging these approaches will bring another opportunity to build brand awareness, drive qualified traffic, retain previous customers, and improve conversions.

Consider that the frequency of your advertising can make your audience find it as a violation of their privacy and they might feel annoyed. This may cause them to keep away from your ads.

• Remarketing – Remarketing in digital advertising is a powerful technique to place your advertisement in front of the people who have already visited your website. It helps you to set focused targeting, keep your brand top of mind, lead your target users to return to your website, and boost your ROI.
• Retargeting – On the other hand, retargeting focuses on users’ previous online actions instead of browsing history. It allows you to display your ads when your target audience is ready to buy. With retargeting, you can find a relevant audience for future sales emails, draw them to a specific page, and avoid shopping cart abandonment.

As you’ve seen in this chapter, digital advertising can boost your bottom line and that will take your business to the next level.

In the next chapter, I’m going to explain mobile promotion which is one of the best promotional marketing tactics to really connect with your target audience in an effective way.

Mobile has become the main screen for information consumption and purchasing online. Although there are common promotions on the web and mobile, it is key to take advantage of mobile’s unique characteristics such as their location and personal information.

In this chapter, I’ll cover the basics of mobile marketing and the main types of mobile marketing approaches that work great.

What is mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing is a mobile user-centered marketing approach that reaches out to your target audience and gets you as close to your prospects and customers as possible. It makes it easier not only for users to leverage your services, but also for you to offer business value.

What’s more, mobile marketing allows you to have direct marketing communication with target users, send out specific content to them, and gather customer data effectively.

Let’s see some of the mobile marketing statistics.

There are some interesting insights that you should not ignore .

• 80% of internet users own a smartphone.
• Mobile devices are used for over 40% of online transactions.
• 52% of companies use a simple template that works for all devices.
• Apps account for 89% of mobile media time.
• 80% of shoppers use smartphones during physical shopping.
• 39% of companies create a mobile responsive email template.
• Google owns 96% of mobile search traffic.

As you can see, mobile marketing is crucial for your business and you must improve your mobile user experience to promote your business successfully.

Benefits of mobile marketing

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular tools to communicate and make a purchase. So, mobile marketing plays a critical role in overall marketing strategies.

Here’s why mobile marketing is a must:

• Reach out to a large number of users.
• Give convenience to share content socially.
• Increase brand awareness.
• Enhance the effectiveness of cross-media ads.
• Keep users engaged.
• Build a personal relationship.
• Gain instant feedback (higher response rates).
• Easy to track results.
• Improve user experience.
• Drive O2O marketing.

In short, mobile marketing gives you the opportunity to provide your target prospects and customers with unique user experience and engage with them.

Let me show you what you can do with mobile marketing to promote your business.

Mobile-friendly websites

This is crucial and the first thing you should do to perform mobile marketing effectively. A mobile-friendly website is a tiny version of your website and has a great impact on the consumer buying process. It attracts new customers and retains your current customer base.

When it comes to a mobile-friendly website, it is critical to display your content and text correctly to any different size of screens and devices. For example, if your website requires users to zoom in every time they read texts, you’re giving a poor and uncomfortable user experience.

What’s more, it is good for your overall SEO performance. A mobile website provides improved rankings on search engines and drives customer traffic. Also, it enhances mobile user experience and user satisfaction.

Responsive web design

Responsive web design (RWD) adapts and changes web content depending on screen sizes and browsers. It gives you better SEO results and helps you to improve user experience.

Designing your website and content focusing on how a user makes use of it is of vital importance. From homepage design and layout to web forms, make sure to offer great usability and work on increasing mobile user engagement.

You can read this guide to better understand what it is and how to use it.

Loading time

Another way of enhancing mobile user experience is to reduce loading time. Now that more than half of visitors leave a page if they’re forced to wait longer than 3 seconds, you must improve your page speed as fast as possible.

There are many techniques to improve your page speed:

• Avoid landing page redirects.
• Enable compression.
• Improve server response time.
• Leverage browser caching.
• Minify resources.
• Optimize images.
• Optimize CSS delivery.
• Prioritize visible content.
• Remove render-blocking JavaScript.
• Use asynchronous scripts.
• Avoid plugins.
• Configure the viewport.
• Size content to viewport.

Size tap targets appropriately

Use legible font sizes

You can use PageSpeed Insights from Google to make your web page faster.

Text-based marketing

Text-based marketing is a fundamental and promotional way to reach out to a target audience. As texting is the most used mobile device feature, you are able to communicate with the right message directly and stay in touch with them in a comfortable way.

Besides, the global SMS open rate is over 90% and its click-through rate is better than email. You can send promotions, updates, confirmations, and reminders using text messaging. Text messaging allows you to promote your business and generate leads effectively.

What makes text-based messaging so powerful is that it is cheap and you can automate all the activities for great user engagement. However, you have limits of space to send your messages and function to attract your audience and integrate with other apps.

SMS Marketing

Short Message Service (SMS) is the most used mobile marketing approach. It allows you to have instant communication with customers through short text messages up to 160 characters. Since it only requires the phone numbers to send, it is easy to get started with SMS marketing.

SMS marketing can bring the best engagement and conversion rates of any of the marketing methods. You can increase brand awareness. Thus, making your audience feel comfortable to open your short message and click on the link in it. That will help you not to go into a spam folder.

Opt-in SMS marketing is a more comfortable way for both sides to communicate. You can ask your prospects and customers for permission to keep sending your marketing messages. Remember to give instructions to opt-out, with a short message like “Text STOP to opt out.”

MMS Marketing

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is when you send a message but with an image, video, or some other type of multimedia on it.

What’s different from SMS is that you deliver information through email addresses instead of phone numbers. So with MMS you can send long-form texts and include images, videos, voice data, etc.

Push notification

A push notification is a message or alert that pops up on desktop and mobile devices. You can send personalized information, reminders, and advertisements to users after you ask for permission (opt-in) to receive your message.

As the opt-in rates are much higher on Android devices (91.1%) than iOS (43.9%), it can be one of the easiest ways to send messages to your targeted audience and increase user engagement.

With push notification, it is easy to segment your target audience based on real-time website behavior, device type, geographic information, etc. It helps you to acquire new customers, encourage users to complete certain tasks on your website, and convert abandoned carts into sales.

Also, you can conduct an A/B test to check which title/message/CTA/image works better with your audience. So you can perform your best to drive engagement and conversion.

Find out more information about push notifications in this post .

Location-based service

Location Based Service (LBS) is a service to deliver custom information or promotions based on the geographic information of mobile devices through GPS. It gives you a better understanding of user behavior by tracking analysis.

This works especially well when they are physically close to your business. Using location-based mobile marketing you are not only able to attract new customers, but also accelerate your local business and drive O2O marketing effectively.

Thus, LBS sends your marketing messages to potential and current customers effectively. Besides, it gathers their information in real-time and customizes your marketing campaigns to fit your customer’s location.

If you’re looking for more information about location-based marketing, you’ll love this publisher’s guide.

A famous example of LBS is a “check-in.” Mostly it is visible on social media to the friends of the person who “check-in”. So it can be social proof of your business, drive personal referrals, and increase your local business exposure.

What’s more, check-in is a geo-targeted service that allows you to provide additional information about your business, engage users, and offer promotional offers like discounts or coupons.

Make sure to activate your check-ins and monitor activities frequently. It gives you the chance to interact with users and draw them into customers. Also, you can get a better idea of who’s checking, what they’re saying about you, and how you can approach them effectively.

Mobile advertising is a fast-growing and influential promotion method that displays advertisements on mobile web pages and in mobile apps.

As the global mobile device usage is continuously growing, you cannot miss this amazing opportunity to reach out to a wide range of active users and convert them into your customers.

By placing relevant information on what users are doing with their mobile devices, it is not only possible to attract users, but also to significantly improve lead generation and sales.

Mobile coupon

A mobile coupon is an electronic coupon delivered to mobile devices. It allows users to access a certain web page and receive valuable information or special deals/discounts/rebates when purchasing a product or service.

According to a mobile coupon survey , 25% of the responders redeem texted coupons within three days, and 60% redeem them within a week. Many shoppers are influenced by coupons and discounts. So, a mobile coupon plays a key role in consumers’ purchasing decisions.

Thus, you have a great opportunity to promote your product or service, increase customer traffic, build a customer database, and deepen customer loyalty with mobile coupons.

A QR code is a readable barcode by camera-equipped mobile devices. It stores specific texts or web URLs to let people take specific actions, such as visiting a mobile website, offering coupons and deals, or giving downloadable information.

With a QR code, you can provide users with convenience and great user experience at the same time. It will guide users to a particular page and induce people to take the desired action.

However, you need to work on its disadvantages. Since QR codes need to be scanned with a mobile device, obviously you are asking users to take additional action before receiving your offers. You must give clear benefits and persuasive messages for users to scan your QR code.

Mobile Apps

As 90% of mobile time is spent on apps , mobile apps have sunk into our lives. They are distinct from a mobile website and they bring a huge opportunity for businesses to boost brand awareness, highly engage with users, improve customer service and increase customer loyalty.

Most importantly, you can offer better personalization with mobile apps. Since they track user engagement and collect data, you can offer customized content and a personalized experience. Also, mobile apps allow you to send push notifications at a point of sales so that they have higher conversion rates.

Besides, mobile apps can utilize mobile device features such as phone, camera, GPS, contact lists, Face ID, etc. This will give you additional value that can differentiate you from your competition. It enhances user experience and generates customer satisfaction.

Social media marketing

Social media is a cost-effective and interactive marketing channel for businesses to reach prospects and customers, increase brand awareness and traffic, promote your content, and engage with them.

As there are about 3.5 billion active social media users, marketing your business on social media has so much potential. It allows you to promote your brand and content and helps you to find your audience in an easy and fast manner.

Besides, you can easily join any conversation and offer real-time customer services. So, it is effective to perform one-to-one marketing and develop relationships with users.

Mobile payment

Mobile payment is an electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) transaction which makes it easier for users to make payments. This improves cash flow, conversions, and user experience.

Since app stores keep track of the purchase information each time the user buys something, it allows you to access customer data and integrate loyalty programs. For example, you can use this data to offer reward points, coupons and more.

If you’re not familiar with mobile payment, check out this great Q&A post .

Don’t forget

Mobile marketing only works if you offer mobile users content that is optimized for mobile platforms and display it correctly. Keep in mind that mobile devices have diverse platforms with different screen sizes. And the performance varies for each browser.

Mobile marketing is very effective by collecting user data like preferences and searching history through mobile devices.

But you need to deal with users’ data privacy and security carefully and you must be transparent about your use of personal data.

When it comes to promotion, marketers tend to focus on the online marketing strategies I mentioned earlier.

However, you cannot neglect the power of public relations (PR) to promote your business.

In this chapter, you’re going to learn what PR are about and how you can leverage them.

What are public relations?

Public relations focus on strategic communication management in marketing that develops better relationships between organizations and their public. They help you to maintain a good brand image and a stronger relationship with your audience.

One of the main PR functions is storytelling through the media. It spreads your story to the public and builds your credibility among your audience. Another one is marketing communication that handles good and bad perceptions of your corporate images.

As you can see, public relations aren’t all about getting brand mentions and promoting your business. Without striving to keep your brand image clean and safe, you won’t achieve marketing communication success.

The roles of public relations

Public relations support your brand building, expand your messaging reach, minimize your damage by negative publicities, and shape your organization image. Thus, PR have so many functions.

If you’re new to public relations, check out the following roles below:

• Media representation.
• Content development.
• Media relations.
• Community relations.
• Financial relations.
• Government relations.
• Employee relations.
• Customer/Client relations.
• Investor relations.
• Influencer relations.
• Marketing communication.
• Public affairs.
• Reputation management.
• Crisis management.
• Social media management.

Building a good brand image is not an easy task and it will take time till you feel the power of public relations. But if you have a brand and a business to run, you won’t want to miss what public relations can bring to your business!

Do you want to know why it’s worth implementing?

Then, let’s see what advantages you can expect from operating public relations!

Benefits of public relations

Public relations can secure beneficial relationships with the public and protect your established brand from negative publicities. This will drive so many advantages to your business and support your business producing the best results.

Here are some benefits of public relations that you can gain:

• Shape a better brand image both online and offline.
• Highly target your market and audience.
• Attract public, investors, partners, stakeholders, and employees.
• Generate leads.
• Cost-effective (more than advertising).
• Build trust and educate your target audience.
• Influence the perception, knowledge, behavior of your audience.
• Obtain credibility, reliability, and authority.
• Generate positive media coverage.
• Develop long-term relationships.
• Expose your brand to a large audience.
• Raise brand awareness.
• Gain endorsements from a third-party media outlet.
• Avoid false information spreading.
• Minimize the damage and crisis of your brand reputation.
• Establish your brand.
• Improve customer experience.
• Boost your brand mentions.
• Increase qualified traffic.
• Enhance social media engagement.
• Gain backlinks.
• Acquire new customers and retain current customers.
• Drive revenue and profits.

Public relations are quite different from marketing which focuses more on sales by direct and promotional marketing. Yet, they share common goals such as promoting news, raising awareness, and improving attitudes.

Public relations focus not only on impacting the perception and behavior of the target audience, but also on preventing reputation attacks. Those activities will eventually build positive relationships with the public.

Now you know what PR is all about, let’s get to the point – how you can implement them as a part of your promotion. I’m going to share some key PR activities that you can apply to your strategies.

Content Development

To nurture your audience and build a good image of your brand, content development is one of the key activities for public relations. It is necessary that you get some endorsements from the media to promote what you’re and what you can bring to the market. But it’s not enough to make the public get a better understanding of you.

With content development, you can share your pitches from your angle and promote your message to your target audience. This way, you will capture more qualified leads who are already interested in your keywords, topics, or business.

Press release

A press release is one of the most valuable assets in public relations. It can reach a wide range of audiences, and generate media coverage, and it creates public awareness like journalists and media outlets. 

You can include anything you need to tell your story within a few pages. However, there are some content aspects a press release should contain:

• A compelling headline that attracts the public.
• Subheadings.
• Body in detail.
• Release date.
• Contact information.

A press release is a great opportunity to promote your brand professionally. You can send out as many as you like from different angles. This will lead your audience to find you as they need. Be sure to triple check if your press release is proofreading and error-free before media distribution!

Website content

As you already know, your website is a critical component of digital marketing performance . PR’s content development is not only about a press release. You can promote your business on your website by adding features that make your website visitors get to know you better.

Here are some examples you can consider:

1. Develop an attractive About Us page.

An ‘About Us’ page is a very important page on your website. This is the place where you can introduce any appealing information for your website visitors to understand who you are, how you can help them, what you’ve done to solve the problems your customers and clients have, etc. 

Many people think that an ‘About Us’ page should be all about yourself. But it’s the place where you need to focus on how your target audience reads your content and how you can persuade them to do business with you. If you have more things to talk about, you can write a blog post or a case study.

2. Winning industry awards.

Winning awards boosts your credibility and reputation. It showcases your achievements and how reliable your service is. It is time-consuming and requires extra work to get awards, but you cannot miss out this big chance to win the trust of your audience. Even for the people who don’t know your business, award marks are effective.

Either on the ‘About Us’ page or at the footer, it is a great chance to show your credentials, awards, and certifications. Be sure to apply for quality and credible awards. This will make your audience feel confident to trust and try your business.

3. Update blog posts.

Blogging is an effective public relations tool to promote your work. It enhances not only your reputation, but also your authority. Let’s see if you write how-to posts about your industry topics that your audience may want to hear about. It is helpful for them to figure out what’s going on, especially from someone (you) who they consider as an expert. Also, it can show that you care about them.

There are so many reasons why you need to blog, but one of them is that a blog post is shareable. So you can spread your messages to a large audience and your readers can also share it. This way, your content gets more exposure and generates extra leads.

4. Create case studies.

A case study is one of the best ways to showcase your business value and the effectiveness of your marketing performance. It tells a successful story about how effective your business is dealing with your customers. You should choose the most valuable stories that brought satisfying solutions.

Most potential customers want to know how you did your job with others before they contact you. To grab your audience’s attention and convince them that you’re the best choice, you must make your case study as specific as possible. Don’t exaggerate your story, and use the real numbers!

5. Ask for testimonials and reviews.

Social proof is a powerful marketing technique that you should include in your website content to boost your value. People believe and trust what others say more than your words. So, it is vital to add testimonials and reviews on your website. They strengthen your credibility and convert your visitors into your customers.

For collecting testimonials and reviews, you should ask your customers and clients to give you feedback right after your delivery. Otherwise, you may lose the opportunity to ask for a testimonial and get detailed information from them. Remember what others say matters most to your potential customers and clients!

6. Video content.

Considering the fact that video is one of the favorite types of content that people like to consume, you should think about creating one for your business. It takes lots of time and effort to make one, but you cannot overlook that video content drives qualified leads and better SEO to your business.

Video is easy to consume and people are 95% more likely to remember the message in video content rather than text-only content. Besides, it also increases user engagement.

Though, it is key to make your video interesting and work on how to prevent bounces by hooking viewers at the very beginning!

Consider adding a good promotional video to your website.

7. Infographics.

Infographics are eye-catching content that support your message. It helps you to tell your story visually and deliver complex information in the easiest way. As infographics get higher engagement on social media , they can generate more traffic and improve your SEO.

My advice here is that you should create infographics as an assistant of your content like blog posts. Although they are generally used as a supportive channel, infographics are a great link building tool and a helpful source for your audience. Especially for busy people who write articles.

It is always a good idea to go to PR events in order to interact with professionals in your industry and its audience. PR events can be your great shots to build relationships with real-people, develop your professional profile and polish your brand image.

There are three ways to participate in PR events:

1. Be a speaker in PR events.

Public speaking is one of the most powerful ways of sharing your message and building your credibility with the audience. With strong communication skills, you can influence and create relationships with them. What’s more, public speaking helps you to grow your business and career.

So, you must improve your communication, critical thinking, and leadership skills to inspire people. You should test which tools and equipment work best for your messaging. And when you give a speech, be confident and enjoy!

2. Organize PR events.

Sponsoring PR events can put your business front and center. It will generate brand awareness and improve consumer perception of your business. Normally event attendees provide personal data like contact information. So you can organize your event more related to them and strive to strengthen relationships with them by sending emails after the event.

Speaking in front of a large audience can be terrifying, but choosing your guest speakers is hard. Since your PR event must reflect your brand image, you cannot risk the event’s success to guest speakers.

Though, if you decide to do so, you should select them carefully by checking their previous speeches and talking in person before making a decision.

Last but not least, you must prepare your backup plans in case something goes wrong. Otherwise, it can destroy your reputation, brand image, and relationships.

3. Attend industry events.

You should search for events in your industry and attend them for your network. Industry events are a gathering of professionals and their audience so that it is a great PR opportunity for you to meet people and start business relationships with them.

Who knows you might meet your future clients and partners in the events. Your business chances are laid in anywhere. All you have to do is look around and grab them!

Public relations play a significant role in your business development and marketing communication. And it spreads a positive image to everyone. Thus, you should incorporate public relations into your promotion strategies if you haven’t done it already.

Promotional marketing metrics are very important factors to spread your brand. Tracking and analyzing your performance helps you to do your best and develop better strategies.

Before completing your promotion strategy, let’s check out some promotional marketing metrics.

Measuring your performance is extremely important because it will tell you whether your approach is worth continuing and you need to modify your strategies.

Without knowing promotional effectiveness, you may waste your time and effort focusing on results that don’t bring any benefits for you.

The bottom line:

I’m going to share key metrics for content promotion, website performance, and advertising so that you can strive for your best promotion.

So let’s get to it!

Content promotion metrics

Content marketing works when you track and measure the right metrics for your goals. Although which metrics to track depends on your business and your content marketing goals and strategies, the following metrics are essential.

Consumption

Seo performance, lead-generation.

These metrics are not all you should track. They can be useful to understand your performance better. But as I mentioned earlier, you need to match your goals and what metrics to measure.

Website performance metrics

Simply, website performance metrics are indicators of whether your website is successfully working or not.

And here’s the point:

No matter how awesome your content is, you won’t be able to make the most out of it if your website performance is bad.

It means that you must check out the efficiency of your website before your promotion. You can use a website speed test tool like WebPageTest to improve the usability and user experience on your website.

Here are some key indicators for speeding up your website performance:

Digital advertising metrics

Digital advertising is one of the most common advertising techniques. Still, every lead you get with it has a direct acquisition cost.

Therefore, it is very important to track digital advertising metrics not only to improve efficiency but also to reduce costs. Otherwise, you may get a negative ROI.

The following are critical for digital advertising success:

With successful promotion strategies, you will be able to increase the engagement and conversion of your products and services. They will also help you to make more sales and grow your business as a result.

There you have the step-by-step promotion tactics and useful techniques that you can implement right away.

What is important is, don’t wait for things to happen, take the initiative.

Now I would like to hear from you!

Which of the promotion strategy formulas in this post are you going to apply?

Or perhaps did I miss your favorite strategies…?

Leave a comment to let me know what you think!

6 thoughts on “Promotion Strategy: How to Promote Your Business [2023]”

that’s an amazing article

Thank you Akhil, I’m glad you like it!

Very interesting and informative post. keep sharing.

Thanks for your great information, want to hear more from you.

Great post! I find it very interesting going through the write-up. The main point is clear to understand, and I find them very resourceful. Hoping to see more similar content.

thanks for sharing very interesting post .

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

11 Marketing Promotion Strategies from Concept to Top Brands Practice

A promotion strategy is key for positioning your brand on the market, making people aware of the products or services you offer, and how they could benefit by choosing you. 

But with so many brands offering similar products or services as you do, your promotional techniques may be decisive for many potential clients.

In this article, we’ll dive into building a well-crafted, long-term inbound promotional marketing campaign strategy that will generate leads continuously for a long time.  By tailoring your marketing efforts to your target market, you can effectively reach and engage with potential customers, ultimately driving success for your brand.

What Is a Promotion Strategy?

A promotion strategy is defined by the plan and tactics you implement in your marketing plan to increase your product or service demand. Promotional strategies play a vital role in the marketing mix (product, price, placement, and promotion), and they revolve around:

• Target audience . Who you are selling for, and what are their interests;
• Budget . How much you are willing to invest in promotion;
• Plan of action . What strategy you are adopting to reach your objectives and make sales.

The promotion strategy is part of the bigger picture, which is the marketing strategy.

So What Is a Marketing Strategy?

The marketing strategy definition refers to the strategic planning and long-term actions of any organization with the purpose of achieving defined goals.

These strategies can be inbound (pull marketing) or outbound (push marketing).

What Are the Best Examples of Marketing Strategies?

1. Content marketing

2. Social media marketing

3. Search engine optimization (SEO)

4. Email marketing

5. Referral marketing

6. Event sponsoring

7. Influencer marketing

8. Promotions

9. Offering refunds

10. Customer loyalty programs

11. Guerrilla marketing

What Is The Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is the strategic process that uses pull marketing—content marketing, blogs, events, SEO, social media—to create brand awareness and attract new customers. 

This process often happens even before the potential customers decide to make a purchase. The first step is to know and connect with the brand to which they will eventually come back to take action.

Being a form of native marketing, inbound marketing relies a lot on organic leads, making your brand appear more human because the methods used in this type of marketing strategy don’t look overly promotional. They are somewhat educational and entertaining. Once your customers discover you through a good, informational piece of content, they will instantly trust you more.

Outbound or push marketing refers to any strategy where a company performs a more traditional form of marketing, such as TV commercials, radio ads, print advertisements, or sales calls (known as cold calls). You could say it’s a more aggressive form of marketing, which may bring sales on the spot, but it has a lower ROI than inbound marketing. 

Being driven by sales, outbound marketing doesn’t really allow a company to build long-term relationships with customers . 

What Roles Do Marketing Promotion Strategies Play?

Marketing promotion strategies play four different roles that look like a funnel that leads to purchasing:

• Build awareness 

Start making your target audience aware of your brand. To build it, you must first identify the profile of the people you want to reach.

• Make people interested  

Once you get your product/service out there, create interest around it, and make people intrigued and interested while differentiating your brand from the competition.

• Create product/service demand

In this step of the funnel, people will start relating emotionally to your product/service by seeing something that may benefit them.

• Make them take action

Create a way for your target audience to engage with your product/service. Place a call-to-action button on your website, emails, ads, social media profiles, or entice them with an irresistible offer. Get inspired by these sales promotion examples that work.

11 Types of Inbound Marketing Promotion Strategies

It’s time to see some of the best and most efficient inbound marketing strategies that will bring leads and turn your audience into loyal customers.

1. Drive More Traffic with Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the key marketing strategies that can help you bring your brand in front of your audience. 

It’s a form of educating your customers about the products and services you offer and related topics in your industry.

A content marketing strategy is the very definition of a win-win situation. Your audience learns how to solve specific problems while you generate leads and increase sales.

Let’s say you are a company that sells tires, and you start blogging about the importance of choosing the correct tires, when to change them, safety, and so on. This type of content will help you start building trust, making your brand a good candidate for their next tire purchase, which makes content marketing a precious indirect form of promotion strategy. 

You might be surprised how important this matter is, but digital content marketing doesn’t resume at blogging. It’s everywhere. Online paid advertising or sponsored ads, websites, digital flipbooks , social platforms, and so on.

Of course, is more than just content. The process begins with creation (based on a solid digital content strategy) and is followed by promotion, measurement, and constant optimization. However, there’s a learning curve to it in which the secret ingredient is patience.

Here are a few types of digital content marketing you can explore:

• Blog posts 

A prevalent yet powerful form of inbound marketing, blog posts help you promote internal and external content, include product or service information, or simply educate your audience regarding a topic from your niche.

Articles are the perfect way of increasing website ranking and boost your landing pages for free. You just have to do a bit of research before writing so you can incorporate SEO as well. 

• Infographics

Infographics are a great form of visualization between images and data. They are engaging and easy to understand, as they are constructed based on short text, numbers, data, and graphics.

You can share them as a single standalone piece of content or include them in the visual anatomy of blog posts and sustain an idea even better.

Some people are really good at multitasking, so they are able to workout while also stimulating the mind. The perfect way to serve them informational content in this scenario is to create a podcast for your business.

A 2020 survey shows that 37% of U.S. adults listened to a podcast in the last month . Moreover, this percent has tripled over the past decade.

It can be a sign your brand should invest in a podcast, which allows you to be extremely creative and open to choices. For example, you can invite influencers to talk about a subject from your niche or explore a more extensive topic that you can break down into more episodes.

Also, you can always repurpose your blog posts into podcasts or vice versa. 

Nowadays, online video marketing drives a lot of engagement. 

People often want to learn something fast and, if possible, in a more passive way. 96% of people watched an explainer video to find out more about a product or service. For these situations, it’s good to have informative videos prepared for your video content marketing.

Moreover, video marketing is a powerful way to boost conversions and improve ROI. The proof is 87% of video marketers who say video has increased traffic to their website.

Again, you can repurpose your written content into videos and save more time in the creative process. You can use video editing apps like Instasize to help you produce high-quality content straight from your smartphone — no professional experience needed. In your product marketing strategy, don’t forget to include video as well.

Like we said earlier, content marketing is everywhere, even in the form of paid ads. You will find them on a wide range of websites, on social media, landing pages, or banners.

Paid search advertising is still inbound marketing because your ads are a part of native marketing, and they only appear when people perform a search related to the products or services you offer. So, they’re not intrusive or aggressive. 

The paid ads will help you reach a broader audience and place your product/services anywhere you wish them to be visible.

Don’t forget that content marketing is more than just creating content. Based on your overall marketing strategy, the process begins with creation, followed by promotion, measurement, and constant optimization. Without good SEO content marketing, your content may never be discovered.

One of the best promotion examples of a great marketing strategy is H&M’s sales promotion strategy. Inside H&M is their way of offering customers valuable information about their collections and fashion trends from the industry focused on local culture.

Image Source

Related articles:

7 Online Marketing Strategies And Examples Every Entrepreneur Should Learn Today

13 Sales Promotion Techniques To Boost Your Sales + Case Studies

Local Business Advertising: 20 Strategies To Start Thriving Now

2. Explore the Power of Social Media Marketing

This again is content, but because it’s such an essential part of your marketing strategy, it deserves a section of its own.

With over 3.6 billion people using social media worldwide , social media marketing is a great way to share your promotional content.

Luckily, you can use a few social media platforms, depending on the audience you wish to target. Experiment with Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest , Linkedin, Snapchat, or YouTube ads , and see which one suits you best.

Before starting, see where you should invest your social media marketing budget and what type of ads these platforms can host. Snapchat, for example, is associated with youngsters, while LinkedIn is a platform for professionals. 

Also, don’t forget that YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google, so it’s definitely worth taking a look at it.

Find the right social media platform for your brand and take advantage of everything it has to offer.

Communicate with your audience online. Social media marketing is a great mediator between your potential customers and your brand.

Keep in mind that your approaches should be different on most social media channels. You have to use targeted posts and display ad designs to maximize online conversions with a buyer persona . 

Take a look at Audi’s social media marketing strategy on social media. At first glance, you might call their Instagram page boring. But if you look closer, you’ll see that boring is not the right word. I’d instead call them persistent. 

Their attitude towards social media is “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” They simply stick to what they know works for their audience. Their Instagram social media marketing strategy is pretty simple and catchy. 

Luxurious images with expensive cars in impressive and flattering lighting—guaranteed success for an Instagram account with 15.7 million followers.

3. Elevate Your Visibility With The Power of Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a crucial part of an inbound marketing strategy. It involves optimizing a website’s content, structure, and overall online presence to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords and phrases. The ultimate goal of SEO is to attract organic (non-paid) traffic from search engines and drive targeted visitors to a website.

Here’s how SEO works as an inbound marketing strategy:

• Increased Visibility : Optimizing website content, meta tags, headings, and images according to best SEO practices can increase businesses’ visibility in search engine results. This improves the likelihood of attracting clicks from users seeking information or solutions related to their products or services.
• Targeted Traffic : SEO helps attract targeted traffic to a website by optimizing for specific keywords and phrases that align with the business’s offerings and the needs of its target audience. As a result, the traffic generated through SEO tends to be highly relevant and more likely to convert into leads or customers.
• Builds Credibility and Trust : Websites that rank higher in search results are often perceived as more credible and trustworthy by users. By consistently appearing at the top of SERPs for relevant queries, businesses can build authority and establish themselves as industry leaders, which enhances brand reputation and credibility over time.
• Cost-Effective : Compared to paid advertising methods such as pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, SEO is a cost-effective inbound marketing strategy in the long run. While it requires an initial investment in terms of time, resources, and expertise to optimize a website and produce high-quality content, the traffic generated through organic search is accessible and sustainable over time.
• Long-Term Results : Unlike some outbound marketing tactics that provide short-term results, SEO is a long-term strategy that can continue to drive traffic and results over time. Businesses can maintain and improve their search engine rankings by consistently publishing high-quality content, optimizing website elements, and earning backlinks from reputable sources.
• User-Centric Approach : SEO is not just about pleasing search engines but also about providing users value. By creating informative, relevant, and user-friendly content that addresses the needs and interests of their target audience, businesses can improve the overall user experience and encourage engagement, leading to higher search rankings.

Overall, SEO is a fundamental inbound marketing strategy that helps businesses achieve their marketing goals, empower their marketing team, and gain a competitive advantage by leveraging the power of search engines to connect with potential customers when they are actively seeking information or solutions.

4. Use Email Marketing to Drive Engagement and Sales

Email marketing can be part of an inbound promotion strategy, as well as an outbound promotion strategy. 

It’s up to you how you want to use it.

But when used correctly, an email marketing campaign proves to be extremely effective in a brand’s marketing strategy.

Here are some email marketing stats to convince you:

• There are 3.9 billion daily email users, a number predicted to climb to 4.3 billion by 2023. ( Statista )
• Marketers who implemented segmented (personalized) email campaigns have witnessed a 760% increase in revenue. ( Campaign Monitor )
• On average, marketers send 3-5 emails per week. ( Not Another State of Marketing )
• Over the last 12 months, 78% of marketers observed an increase in email engagement. ( Not Another State of Marketing )
• 31% of B2B marketers recognized email newsletters as the best way to generate leads. ( Content Marketing Institute )
• 81% of B2B marketers say their most used form of content marketing is email newsletters. ( Content Marketing Institute )
• 87% of B2B marketers say email campaigns are one of their top choices for organic distribution channels. ( Content Marketing Institute )
• 90% of content marketers measure content performance according to email engagement. ( Content Marketing Institute )
• 46% of all emails are opened on mobile devices. ( Litmus.com )

Inbound email marketing campaign focuses on building a relationship with the readers instead of spamming them with overly promotional emails. 

An inbound email marketing strategy should keep count of a few things, such as the message’s value and timing. 

Once you create your lists of email addresses, it means you have the right people who are actually interested in your product or service. Next, the only thing you have to do for your email campaign is to provide your subscribers with quality content, preferably targeted through segmentation. 

Send newsletters, feature launches, event invitations, or news from the industry. You can also use your email campaigns to remind people of your social media presence so that they could follow you.

Here’s an example from Course Hero.

5. Run Referral Marketing to Incentivize Existing Customers

When it comes to referrals, the numbers speak for themselves. 92% of people will rather trust a product or service recommendation from a friend than any other form of marketing.

Word of mouth advertising, also known as WOM, is one of the most valuable examples of pull promotional strategies. While experts consider it one of the strongest methods out there, it is also the most difficult to obtain.

There are two types of WOM advertising, also called word of mouth marketing (WOMM): 

• Organic, which refers to recommendations from one person to another without your interference, but simply because they are satisfied with the product/service; 
• Through referral programs and advertising campaigns designed to encourage or accelerate WOM in existing or new communities .

These two work hand in hand. Once you have a great marketing campaign, you will also bring leads organically.

77% of consumers trust reviews more than advertising, and because today, 4.66 billion people have access to the internet and are digitally connected, imagine what a single recommendation or positive review will do. News travels super fast on the internet.

Yes, it requires a lot of time and effort, especially if your brand is new on the market. However, there are a few techniques that encourage this type of brand promotion strategy. 

Consider creating a referral program in which customers who share their brand experience are rewarded in a certain way. Maybe a discount on their next purchase, a gift card, or anything that will make them feel appreciated. After all, inbound marketing strategy promotion plans have the customer experience as their top priority.

WOMM is an ongoing process, but it will get easier as your brand grows.

You can also create groups and start a community around your brand. 

Eventually, happy customers will start to advertise the brand without adding any extra effort to the process. Having impartial people praise your business and become your brand ambassadors on social networks is the most natural form of advertising. 

Keep in mind that before even starting to determine people to create buzz around your brand, you have to make sure you can offer everyone a great customer experience from the moment they enter your website to the checkout point.

If you are still questioning yourself about this marketing tactic, I’ll give you clear referral marketing examples in practice. 

Let’s say you are going on a trip to Barcelona. Before your arrival there, what would be one of the first things you usually do? Bingo! Check for recommendations. You look for blogs, Instagram pictures or profiles, Tripadvisor reviews, and so on. In one way or another, all of those are part of a referral marketing promotion strategy.

Adidas’ sales promotion strategy not only includes referrals but also uses dark social media (sharing content through a third party) to get those much-needed recommendations.

“70% of global brand referrals are from dark social, not Twitter or Facebook.” , says Adidas senior director of global brand communications Florian Alt. Thus, back in 2016, Adidas started their Tango Squads campaign. 

They started operating groups on messaging apps , such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, to share exclusive content, pre-launch announcements, etc. This move’s principle is simple: link brand supporters, feed them valuable information and have them spread it with the world.

These are the guys who will push out your stories and content. They give it longevity and authenticity because they are talking in a private messaging environment. If it comes as a referral from your mate, you’re much more likely to pick it up than if it comes from a brand, says Alt .

6. Sponsor Events to Provide Customer Experiences

Sponsorships and inbound marketing go together like peanut butter and jelly. 

But there is a fine line between event sponsorship being outbound or inbound. 

The main difference is that outbound sponsorships usually chase down attendees to make them buy. In contrast, inbound sponsorship focuses on providing attendees with quality information, valuable content, and customer experience, aiming to build a long-lasting relationship.

Of course, the main goal is the same–turning potential customers into loyal customers. What’s different is the approach. 

Think about how you would provide value to attendees through an event and then advertise it. For example, have someone represent your brand to perform an inspiring speech and share it on social media, create a flyer, or make a professional banner with helpful information for future participants.

Also, create an opportunity for your participants to test your products during the event. In this way, you’re offering a customer experience and a chance to see your product’s benefits.

Inbound sponsorship is about building the foundation of a loyal brand-customer relationship. It might not follow through right then and there, but if what you offer is valuable enough for the participant, it will eventually turn them into loyal customers.  

Other benefits of sponsored events:

• Build a reputation
• Increase brand visibility
• New business partnerships
• Building a community

This strategy works great also in local business advertising .

I am pretty sure you all know already about one of the most famous partnership campaigns of all time. So far, PepsiCo has been using this sponsorship marketing promotional strategy to support the NFL, and it’s getting on like smoke.  

7. Work with Influencers to Increase Brand Awareness

Working with influencers is like making the best of traditional word of mouth marketing but in the digital landscape. And this is even better because you can also measure its performance through likes, shares, social media engagement, referrals, clicks, and conversions.

89% of marketers claim the ROI is as good as or even better than other marketing strategies, and 71% say influencer marketing brings them quality leads and better traffic.

Think about this: an influencer has already built a community of loyal followers that trust him/her. 

Once you decide to work with influencers, you can reach thousands of potential customers.

Here are some tips for starting your partnership with an influencer:

       1. Choose them carefully

They have to be relevant for your industry and somewhat specialized in a specific topic and category that fits your niche. Try to narrow down the criteria before choosing them to make sure you’ll find the best matches for your campaigns. 

      2. Work with more than one influencer

A famous influencer in your industry may not be that popular among many followers, especially if they’re at the micro-influencer stage. Choose more than one to advertise for your brand and reach more people at once. For instance, if you were trying to start a Boba shop in your area, you may be better off finding two or three smaller foodie influencers in your local area to showcase your shop as opposed to finding one larger influencer who primarily focuses on beauty and fashion.

      3. Set campaign goals

Define your campaign goals to know what to ask and expect from the influencer you’re working with. Do you want to drive conversions, boost your brand’s reach, increase the number of followers on social media, or be more prevalent in new markets? Do a bit of research before choosing an influencer to see if that’s the right way to help you reach your target.

     4. Allow them to be creative and add their own touch

Once you’re decided on your advertising partner, let them do their magic. The influencer knows best how to engage with their followers and the best way to promote a brand without looking fake or pushy.

3 easy ideas to use when working with an influencer:

    1. Give them discount codes

One way to make your product/service more visible and increase sales is to collaborate with influencers, so they announce discount codes for specific products you’re offering.

    2. Run contests and giveaways

This one works like a charm. You choose the influencer that announces the contest’s rules on their social media account. They may include steps like:

• Tag a friend
• Like the post 
• Follow the brand’s page
• Share the post
• Create content related to the brand
• Leave a comment

    3. Send products for review

You can develop a partnership with an influencer and send them products to review. It’s a win-win situation. They get free products, and you get advertising.

Influencer marketing is cost-effective , especially if you choose to work with micro-influencers , which is also an extremely efficient and trustworthy option. 

This partnership benefits the brand in more than one way:

• You will quickly build a trustworthy brand;
• Your products/services will reach your target audience fast;
• Increases brand awareness and turns customers into brand ambassadors.

When it comes to choosing the social media platforms for promoting your brand through influencer marketing campaigns, focus on those where your target audience spends their time.

According to Mediakix , 89% of marketers say Instagram is vital to their influencer marketing strategy , followed by Instagram Stories, with 73% and YouTube with 56%.

Long story short, an influencer marketing promotion strategy can help you speed up your brand awareness. Thus, giving your brand more credibility and power of retention.

One example of a successful influencer marketing campaign is the one from Under Armour. Their campaign focused on 35 athletes taking pictures of them while working out in Under Armour clothes and using the hashtag #FindYourOnePercent.

Here’s one of the athletes in action:

8. Use Free Samples, Sales Coupons, and Promotions to Boost Sales

Alright, let’s face it. Discounts are everywhere, and people love that. Whether they take the form of a free sample, a coupon, or a promotion, sales can actually be a great example of an inbound marketing strategy for products. 

However, inbound sales aim for something more than just a simple purchase. When it comes to inbound/pull marketing, it shouldn’t be just a one time fling but a long-lasting, serious relationship.

So, which promotional strategies count as inbound marketing?

Think about the times in which you decide to buy a monthly subscription for a particular brand, and after you check out their price lists, you realize that the yearly subscription is way cheaper. 

Now that is inbound marketing. Aiming for long runs instead of short ones.

Another common practice is giving free samples. If you want, we can call this “the drug temptation.” Why? Because it works exactly like that. 

The brand is confident that the person who tries the product for free will be willing to pay the full amount to repeat the experience. On the other hand, the customers are more than willing to try something for free without any strings attached. So, it’s again a win-win situation.

The same principle applies to free trials and demos. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the famous “first month for free” line. As harmless as it sounds, it is part of the same marketing plan.

HBO GO knows this sales promotion technique very well and is embracing it with its arms open.

Another fairly typical example of successful sales promotions is coupons, again for the same reasons. What do coupons do? They imply a specific customer behavior: repetitiveness.

Repetitive purchases create a particular type of familiarity with the product that can quickly turn into loyalty.

9. Offer Refunds & Rebates to Keep Customers Happy

Refunds and rebates are some of the classics in product promotion strategies. The concept behind them is pretty similar. However, they are different in essence and practice.

Refunds represent a way of guaranteeing your customers about the quality of your product. Does the “money-back guarantee” sound familiar to you? This promotion marketing tactic works like reverse psychology. Knowing that you can get your money back if you are not satisfied with the product will make you want to try it.

Of course, businesses that adopt this type of brand promotion strategy mostly know customers won’t ask for their money back because they will fall in love with the brand.

So, before you embrace this kind of strategy, make sure you offer a good quality product.

On the other hand, rebates are counting on a different thing–the comeback of the customer. 

How does it work?  

In this particular marketing strategy, the partial discount, aka rebate, is offered only when the purchased quantity reaches a specific limit. 

The targeted public here is not potential customers, but rather existing customers, in the hopes of securing customer loyalty.

Think about an expensive bottle of champagne. Let’s say it costs around $200. Adopting a rebate promotion marketing tactic won’t make people who never tried it before buying two bottles of it. Chances are, customers who are already familiar with your brand will be interested in purchasing a second bottle for that price. 

And that’s how rebates work.

A great example of a rebate is Apple’s sales promotion strategy. Until today, Apple has been taking advantage of rebates to establish long-term customer relationships with certain target groups. Every year, Apple addresses students with approaches such as the one above during back to school promotions.

10. Create Customer Loyalty Programs and Patronage Rewards to Increase Customer Satisfaction

An oldie but goldie.

Brands have been rewarding their loyal customers before this concept even existed. Whether it takes points and client scores or just simple bonuses at their customer anniversaries, loyalty programs and patronage rewards follow the path of pull marketing strategies.

Moreover, it makes customers feel appreciated and important, creating a special personal bond with the brand itself. 

This marketing promotion strategy is usually encountered in brands that have a touch of corporate to it. 

From bank points for credit card purchases to free internet from telecommunication companies, customer rewards are very famous in pull marketing.

Take a look at Lufthansa and its Miles & More program. It’s the most extensive loyalty program in Europe and has over 20 million members worldwide .

The bottom line of this rewards program is the more you fly with them, the better the benefits: better comfort, better prices, faster layovers, and many other privileges.

11. Capture Attention with Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

Guerrilla marketing is a unique advertising strategy that utilizes surprise and unconventional methods to grab the attention of potential customers and promote a product or service. It borrows the “guerrilla warfare” concept, relying on creativity, innovation, and low-cost tactics to achieve maximum impact.

Here are some key aspects of guerrilla marketing:

• Unconventional tactics:  Instead of traditional advertising channels like TV commercials or billboards, guerrilla marketing uses unexpected and creative approaches to reach the target audience. This could involve anything from interactive installations in public spaces to flash mobs or customized experiences.
• Surprise element:  The element of surprise is crucial in grabbing attention and making a lasting impression.
• Low-cost focus:  Guerrilla marketing relies on resourcefulness and creativity rather than large budgets. This makes it an attractive option for startups and small businesses.
• Engagement and interaction:  Unlike passive traditional advertising, guerrilla marketing seeks to engage the audience and create a memorable experience actively.
• Word-of-mouth and social media:  The goal is to generate buzz and word-of-mouth marketing, often amplified by social media sharing.

Examples of guerrilla marketing tactics include:

• Using sidewalk chalk art to promote a product or event.
• Organizing flash mobs or surprise performances in public spaces.
• Creating interactive installations or experiences that encourage participation.
• Using ambient advertising techniques, such as projecting images or messages onto buildings or sidewalks.
• Employing guerrilla projections, where images or messages are projected onto buildings or landmarks without permission.
• Distributing attention-grabbing promotional materials or branded merchandise in unexpected places or ways.

Guerrilla marketing can be a powerful tool for businesses to stand out from the crowd and memorably connect with their target audience. However, it’s important to remember that it requires careful planning, creativity, and a good understanding of the target audience to be successful.

Finding The Right Marketing Promotion Strategy 

The truth is, a promotion strategy isn’t a one size fits all type of plan.

Think about a simple white T-shirt. How would you sell it to a teenager in comparison to a woman in her mid-50s? The same product, same fabric, same material. Two different audiences, two different approaches. When selling to a teenager, it will probably be about being trendy and cool, while in the second case, it may have something to do with staying classy and looking put together.

You can’t just blindly follow some steps and expect success because multiple factors influence this. 

It almost always has to do with positioning (I mentioned this in the promotion definition), quality of the product, the market’s power of purchase, economy, trends, needs, localization, access to the product or service, and product category. And let’s not forget about the most important influencer: the audience.

Here are a few tips before starting a promotion strategy:

• Set your promotional goals  so you have a realistic sense of where you’re headed.
• Set your budget to help you prioritize your actions.
• Define your target audience to know the approach you will use in your campaigns.
• Choose the promotion types that are the most effective and appropriate for your goals and budget.
• Start working on the key message of your campaign.
• Regularly measure your campaign’s results to see if it needs to be tweaked.

When choosing your marketing promotion campaign, think about your product or service’s most valuable feature and start creating a plan from there, focusing on bringing that feature in front of your target audience.

Your brand’s individuality will contour your campaign needs: what strategies to adopt, what social influencers to contact for a partnership, or which type of social media marketing you should try.

133 Comments

Wow, truly liked your blog. It’s so informative and helpful. Thankyou for sharing this amazing post.

Great article. In order to create a successful marketing campaign, it is important to have a clear understanding of the different marketing promotion strategies available and how to use them most effectively. Which strategy do you think is the most effective one to use for a small business?

Hi Claudia , very well written post, very useful. Keep posting

Thank you for sharing these strategies! I think it’s really important to understand the different strategies before you could utilize them. For you, which strategy is the best for small scale businesses?

A very informative article in order to marketing strategies. Keep sharing detailed articles like this. I just love how you cover each and every topic and explained it very well. Keep posting

I just Loved your Article. You have driven good information about perfect marketing strategies. You have covered all the important topics and are very well explained. Keep posting.

Digital promotion is an excellent way of promoting your business. Digital marketing is a cost-effective and efficient way to promote your business and get more traffic. Effective promotional strategy helps you to show your potential customers why your product or service is unique and better than your competitors.

The strategies that you have suggested can help easily to generate end number of conversions. Thanks for sharing this information with us. Subscribed your blog.

Such an useful and well detailed article. This is a good start for Beginners to understand the meaning of marketing promotion strategies and how to implement it. For sure, this post will help many people including me, in getting the results that they are looking for their online businesses and will push theirs brands on top. Thanks for the effort and keep updating.

Hi, Claudia, your content is really amazing Is so satisfying after reading it, Keep Posting thank for this useful information.

Amazing Content. The techniques you mentioned are really useful for aspiring marketers like me. Keep sharing more good content.

Excellent guide. Thank you Claudia for sharing your promotion secrets!

Well, put, Claudia! We definitely don’t want to seem desperate and aggressive to our target audience. Personally, I focus on “inbound marketing.” Content marketing is undoubtedly one of the best strategies. However, with the introduction of short videos in almost every social media, the influencer strategy seems to be working pretty great alongside. Influencing our target audience and generating leads is not that complex now. Social media has become a great tool for business.

Great content and techniques! Thanks for sharing it!

Awesome blog it is I liked the blog, its informative

thanks for sharing these amazing strategies. this is definitely for those who want to learn more good skills on digital marketing. people from varanasi can learn it practically

Very Effective digital marketing strategies. This will really be helpful for my career. thank you so much for sharing this article.

Hi, Marketing is an important tool in the development of business and service industry. The various strategies mentioned by you is very easy to understand as well as in detail covering the core concepts of the meaning, types of marketing strategies etc. Thank you for helping me in having a clearer understanding on the concepts of marketing.

I have been continually learning about digital marketing in order to raise my website’s ranking. And I have to admit that this is the best blog I have ever read. You have done a fantastic job of explaining the topic, and the advice you have provided is simple to implement and will help us get the best outcomes.

Thank you so much for sharing such informative content.

It’s important to focus on the right marketing promotion strategies to ensure the best return on investment. I’m looking forward to seeing how your strategies work out! thanks for sharing.

Thank you for the clearly given key pointers about marketing strategies. I especially like the importance of content creation and how content writing can be so important in promotion and establishing a business marketing strategy. I wish to learn more about content writing practices.

Thank you for sharing this article about choosing the best promotional techniques for your brand’s inbound marketing strategy. I completely agree with the idea of focusing on a product or service’s most valuable feature when planning a marketing campaign. It’s essential to highlight what sets your brand apart from others and how it can benefit your target audience. Overall, this article provides useful insights and tips for developing an effective inbound marketing strategy. I look forward to implementing some of these ideas for my own brand. Thanks again for sharing!

Great info for a new marketer like me. For a beginner, what is the most essential strategy i should implement

Wow, your suggested strategies are a game-changer! They can effortlessly skyrocket the number of conversions. I’m grateful for you sharing this valuable information with us. I just subscribed to your blog, can’t wait to read more!

Hi amazing blog very well written. Got to know a lot. So relevant and useful. Thanks a lot for sharing this information.

Detailed article, absolutely knowledgeable.

A Great chunk of info! excellent, detailed informative blog regarding digital marketing promotions strategies, looking forward for much more. keep posting!

Nice words about top brands practices. Regards from Turkey.

Thanks for providing a comprehensive overview of various promotion strategies, highlighting the importance of inbound marketing for building long-term customer relationships.

Hi Claudia, excellent work. I have learned something new. Thanks.

very good ideas for both offline and online product companies.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

You may also like

15 Eye-Catching Fonts to Grab Attention on Your YouTube Thumbnails (2024)

40 Eye-Catching Color Combinations In Display Ads

LinkedIn Background Photo Ideas That Will Make Your Profile Stand Out in 2024

More in digital marketing.

10 Best AI Image Generators for Limitless Creativity

9 Inspiring Examples of AI in Marketing From Big Brands

Navigating Creative Fatigue: What’s the Cure & How to Fight It?

Case studies, featured whitepaper.

• Inspiration
• – Display ads
• – Social media ads
• – Video ads
• – Automation
• – Collaboration
• – Animation
• Product updates
• Start free trial

Latest Posts

The feed ad builder: one design, endless variations. instantly.

How to Create a Complete Marketing Strategy in 2024 [Data + Expert Tips]

Updated: March 29, 2024

Published: October 26, 2023

Creating a marketing strategy is essential to effectively nurture your customers, improve your business’s bottom line, and increase the ROI of your efforts.

A marketing strategy is especially critical if you want to use the highest ROI trends for 2024 : short-form video and social media. To get powerful results, you must carefully weave both emerging trends and proven strategies into your plan.

Let’s dive into the critical components of a complete marketing strategy in 2024, followed by some examples for inspiration.

Table of Contents

• What is a marketing strategy?

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

Marketing strategy components, why is a marketing strategy important, marketing strategy process, recommended resources, examples of successful marketing strategies, what to expect after following your marketing process steps, marketing strategy.

A marketing strategy covers a company’s overall approach for promoting its brand to a target audience. The process involves research, goal-setting, and positioning.

A completed marketing strategy typically includes brand objectives, target audience personas, marketing channels, key performance indicators, and more.

A marketing strategy will:

• Align your team to specific goals.
• Help you tie your efforts to business objectives.
• Allow you to identify and test what resonates with your target audience.
• Empower you to capitalize on emerging trends.

The last one is especially important. Keeping up with marketing trends is important for your strategy, but it could be a full-time job.

Why? Because almost 80% of marketers say this industry changed more in the last three years than it has in the past five decades.

Add to that the fact that 50% of marketers believe their marketing strategy in 2023 was only *somewhat effective,* which means there’s plenty of room for improvement.

In short, what worked for your marketing strategy in the past might not fly today.

A marketing strategy outlines the long-term goals and overall approach, while a marketing plan covers the specific actions and tactics to achieve those goals.

Phrased another way, marketing strategy guides the overall marketing efforts of a business. It includes goal-setting, market and competitor research, as well as messaging and positioning for a brand.

For example, say you’re creating a marketing strategy for a new fashion brand. Your strategy might target young urban professionals and position the brand as trendy and affordable.

But a marketing plan is a detailed tactical roadmap. It outlines the specific actions and tactics that should achieve the marketing strategy’s goals.

For example, the marketing plan for the fashion brand mentioned above might include:

• Targeted social media campaigns.
• Influencer partnerships.
• Online advertising timeline.

Both a marketing strategy and a marketing plan are essential for a business’s success.

To succeed in the fast-paced marketing world — and maintain a sense of relevance with your audience — it’s vital to stay ahead of the curve.

To help ease some of that uncertainty, we’re going to show you step-by-step how to create a comprehensive marketing strategy. But first, let’s go over the individual components that make up a strong marketing strategy.

Free Marketing Plan Template

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

• Pre-Sectioned Template
• Completely Customizable
• Example Prompts
• Professionally Designed

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

• Marketing Mix (4 Ps of Marketing)
• Marketing Objectives
• Marketing Budget
• Competitive Analysis
• Segmentation, Targeting, & Positioning
• Content Creation (Including Trending Content)
• Metrics & Key Performance Indicators

1. Marketing Mix

• Conduct market research.
• Define your goals.
• Identify your target audience and create buyer personas.
• Conduct competitive analysis.
• Develop key messaging.
• Choose your marketing channels.
• Create, track, and analyze KPIs.
• Present your marketing strategy.

1. Conduct market research.

Before you can begin creating your marketing strategy, you need to gather useful data for making informed decisions. Market research is like playing detective, but instead of solving crimes, you’re uncovering juicy details about your customers.

Market research will help your businesses make data-driven decisions for your marketing strategy. It also makes it easier to understand your target market, find gaps, and make the most of your resources.

This process is essential for understanding your customers and adapting to changing trends. If you’re new to this process, this complete market research guide and template can help.

Once you have the data you need, you’ll be ready to set some marketing goals.

2. Define your goals.

What do you want to achieve through your marketing efforts?

Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or diversifying your customer base, well-defined goals will guide your marketing strategy.

Your marketing strategy goals should reflect your business goals. They should also offer clear direction for marketing efforts.

For example, say one of your business goals is to increase market share by 20% within a year. Your goal as a marketer could include expanding into new target markets, updating your brand, or driving customer acquisition.

Other marketing goals might be to increase brand awareness or generate high-quality leads. You might also want to grow or maintain thought leadership in your industry or increase customer value.

Defining clear goals provides direction and clarity, guiding marketing efforts toward desired outcomes. It helps with resource allocation, decision-making, and measuring the success of marketing initiatives.

This SMART goal guide can help you with more effective goal-setting.

3. Identify your target audience and create buyer personas.

To create an effective marketing strategy, you need to understand who your ideal customers are. Take a look at your market research to understand your target audience and market landscape. Accurate customer data is especially important for this step.

But it’s not enough to know who your audience is. Once you’ve figured out who they are, you need to understand what they want. This isn’t just their needs and pain points. It’s how your product or service can solve their problems.

So, if you can’t define who your audience is in one sentence, now’s your chance to do it. Create a buyer persona that’s a snapshot of your ideal customer.

For example, a store like Macy’s could define a buyer persona as Budgeting Belinda, a stylish working-class woman in her 30s living in a suburb, looking to fill her closet with designer deals at low prices.

With this description, Macy’s Marketing department can picture Budgeting Belinda and work with a clear definition in mind.

Buyer personas have critical demographic and psychographic information, including age, job title, income, location, interests, and challenges. Notice how Belinda has all those attributes in her description.

For B2B SaaS companies, keep in mind that buyer personas don’t apply solely to the end user. When you’re selling a product to another business, you also have to address the decision-maker, the financial buyer, and the technical advisor, among other roles, says Head of Marketing at Entrapeer, Hillary Lyons .

“You need to be able to tailor your message to each of these unique personas even though most of them will never actually use the product,” says Lyons. “You have to sell each of them on the unparalleled benefit you provide without muddling your [overall] message.”

You don’t have to create your buyer persona with a pen and paper. In fact, HubSpot offers a free template you can use to make your own (and it’s really fun).

You can also use a platform like Versium , which helps you identify, understand, and reach your target audience through data and artificial intelligence.

Buyer personas should be at the core of your strategy.

4. Conduct competitive analysis.

Now that you have an understanding of your customers, it’s time to see who you’re competing with to get their attention.

To begin your competitive analysis, start with your top competitors. Reviewing their websites, content, ads, and pricing can help you understand how to differentiate your brand. It’s also a useful way to find opportunities for growth.

But how do you know which competitors are most important? This competitive analysis kit with templates will walk you through the process. It will help you choose and evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, and strategies of your competitors.

This process will help you find market gaps, spot trends, and figure out which marketing tactics will be most effective. Competitive analysis can also offer valuable insights into pricing, positioning, and marketing channels.

5. Develop key messaging.

You’ve figured out who you’re talking to, what they’ve already heard, and what they want to hear. Now, it’s time to share your brand’s unique value proposition .

In this step, you’ll craft key messaging that shows the benefits of your product or service and resonates with your target audience. This process should show off the research and work you have done up to this point. It should also incorporate your creativity, inventiveness, and willingness to experiment.

Well-crafted key messaging:

• Sets businesses apart from the competition.
• Resonates with the target audience.
• Is flexible enough to be consistent across all marketing channels.
• Builds brand credibility.
• Creates an emotional connection with customers.
• Influences buying decisions.

The key messaging in your marketing strategy is critical to driving engagement, loyalty, and business growth. These value proposition templates can help if you’re not sure how to draft this important messaging.

6. Choose your marketing channels.

You know what you have to say. Now, decide on the best marketing channels for your message. Your top goal for this stage of your strategy is to align your channel choices with your target persona’s media consumption habits.

Start with media channels you’re already using. Then, consider a mix of traditional and digital channels such as social media, TV, email marketing, podcast ads, SEO, content marketing, and influencer partnerships.

To streamline this process, think of your assets in three categories — paid, owned, and earned media.

To decide which marketing channels are best for your marketing strategy, look carefully at each channel. Think about which channels are best for reaching your audience, staying within budget, and meeting your goals.

For example, a business targeting a younger demographic might consider using TikTok or Reddit to reach its audience.

Don’t forget to take a look at emerging platforms and trends as you complete this review. You may also want to look at the content you’ve already created. Gather your materials in each media type in one location. Then, look at your content as a whole to get a clear vision of how you can integrate them into your strategy.

For example, say you already have a blog that’s rolling out weekly content in your niche (owned media). You might consider promoting your blog posts on Threads (owned media), which customers might then repost (earned media). Ultimately, that will help you create a better, more well-rounded marketing strategy.

If you have resources that don’t fit into your goals, nix them. This is also a great time to clean house and find gaps in your materials.

7. Create, track, and analyze KPIs.

Once you have a clear outline of your marketing strategy, you’ll need to think about how you’ll measure whether it’s working.

At this stage, you’ll shift from marketing detective to numbers nerd. With a little planning and prep, your analytics can unveil the mysteries of marketing performance and unlock super insights.

Review your strategy and choose measurable KPIs to track the effectiveness of your strategy. Create a system that works for your team to collect and measure your data.

Then, plan to check and analyze the performance of your strategy over time. This can help you refine your approach based on results and feedback.

Lexi Boese , an ecommerce growth strategist and co-founder of The Digital Opportunists, recommends making data a priority when building your marketing strategy this year.

“The more data you can use, the easier you can track your success,” she says. “This could be as simple as understanding which channels convert the highest amount of customers (to determine how your team should prioritize ad spend), or assessing whether you have a higher amount of first-time or returning customers to [determine] if you should focus on internal or external marketing.”

Analyzing KPIs helps businesses stay agile, refine their strategies, and adapt to evolving customer needs.

8. Present your marketing strategy.

A finished marketing strategy will pull together the sections and components above. It may also include:

Executive Summary

A concise overview that outlines the marketing goals, target audience, and key marketing tactics.

Brand Identity

You may want to create a brand identity as part of your strategy. Brand positioning, voice, and visual identity may also be helpful additions to your marketing strategy.

Marketing Plan and Tactics

Your marketing plan is the specific actions you’ll take to achieve the goals in your marketing strategy. Your plan may cover campaigns, channel-specific tactics, and more.

Not sure where to start? This free marketing plan template can help.

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

9 Pivotal Marketing Trends to Watch in 2024, According to Experts

The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Strategies & How to Improve Your Digital Presence

Diving Deep Into Marketing in Construction (My Takeaways)

11 Recommendations for Marketers in 2024 [New Data]

The Top 5 B2C Marketing Trends of 2024 [New HubSpot Blog Data + Expert Insights]

5 Marketing Trends That Might Not Survive in 2024 [HubSpot Research + Expert Insights]

Everything You Need to Know About Webinar Marketing

7 Marketing Questions Teams are Asking in 2024 (+Data & Insights)

50 Small Business Marketing Ideas for 2024

How Luxury Brands Market and What You Can Learn

All fields are required.

Strategy Studies

10 successful promotion strategies with examples.

Home > Back

Specialties

In today’s digital age, successful promotion strategies are essential for businesses looking to stand out in a crowded marketplace. With the ever-evolving landscape of online marketing and consumer behavior, it’s crucial to adopt innovative and effective promotion strategies. In this article, we’ll delve into ten proven promotion strategies, complete with real-life examples, to help your business thrive.

Now, let’s explore each of these strategies in detail, along with practical examples to illustrate their effectiveness.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Successful promotion strategies are the lifeblood of any business aiming for growth and sustainability. By strategically promoting products or services, companies can attract new customers, engage existing ones, and ultimately drive revenue. In this article, we will uncover ten successful promotion strategies that have been tried and tested across various industries.

Content Marketing

Blogging for engagement.

Blogging remains a powerful tool for content marketing. By consistently publishing high-quality, informative blog posts, you can establish your business as an authority in your niche. For example, Neil Patel’s blog provides in-depth marketing insights, attracting millions of readers seeking expert advice.

Infographics for Visual Appeal

Infographics combine visuals and information to create engaging content. HubSpot uses infographics to simplify complex marketing concepts, making them more accessible to their audience.

Social Media Marketing

Harnessing the power of facebook.

Facebook’s advertising platform allows businesses to target specific demographics. Airbnb, for instance, uses Facebook ads to reach travelers with personalized recommendations.

Leveraging Instagram for Visual Branding

Instagram is a haven for visual content. National Geographic’s Instagram profile showcases stunning images, reinforcing their brand as a leader in nature and travel.

Email Marketing

Personalized email campaigns.

Sending tailored emails based on customer preferences can significantly boost engagement. Amazon’s personalized product recommendations in their emails are a prime example of this strategy.

Automated Drip Campaigns

Automated drip campaigns can nurture leads over time. Dropbox’s onboarding email series effectively guides users through their platform’s features.

Influencer Marketing

Collaborating with micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers can have a more engaged and niche following. Fashion brand Fashion Nova collaborates with micro-influencers who authentically align with their brand.

Leveraging Celebrity Endorsements

Larger brands like Nike leverage celebrity endorsements, such as their partnership with Michael Jordan, to create massive brand awareness.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

On-page optimization.

Optimizing on-page elements like meta titles and descriptions can improve your website’s visibility. Moz’s SEO guide demonstrates best practices in on-page optimization.

Quality Backlink Building

Quality backlinks from authoritative websites can boost your search engine rankings. Ahrefs offers a comprehensive guide on building backlinks effectively.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Google ads for targeted traffic.

Google Ads enable businesses to display their ads to users actively searching for relevant keywords. Grammarly uses Google Ads to target users looking for grammar-checking tools.

Facebook Ads for Audience Reach

Facebook’s extensive user data allows for precise ad targeting. Airbnb utilizes Facebook ads to reach users interested in vacation rentals.

Affiliate Marketing

Partnering with niche affiliates.

Identifying niche affiliates can help you tap into specific markets. Bluehost partners with bloggers and website owners in the web hosting niche.

Setting Lucrative Commissions

Offering competitive commissions can incentivize affiliates to promote your products. Amazon’s affiliate program is known for its attractive commission rates.

Guerrilla Marketing

Viral stunts for buzz.

Viral marketing stunts can generate immense buzz. Red Bull’s Stratos Jump, where a daredevil jumped from the stratosphere, garnered worldwide attention.

Ambush Marketing for Surprise

Ambush marketing involves piggybacking on major events. During the 2012 Olympics, Nike’s “Find Your Greatness” campaign cleverly competed with official sponsors.

Analytics and Performance Tracking

Google analytics for insights.

Google Analytics provides valuable data on website performance. Content marketing agency, Content Marketing Institute, uses Google Analytics to fine-tune their content strategy.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

CRO focuses on optimizing websites for better conversions. Shopify’s blog offers insights into improving e-commerce website conversions.

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, adopting successful promotion strategies is paramount. Whether you choose content marketing, social media advertising, influencer collaborations, or any other method, the key is to stay adaptable and data-driven. By continually analyzing your efforts and adjusting your strategies, you can achieve sustainable growth and success in today’s competitive market.

Get the Strategies

Get the latest posts delivered to your inbox for free.

Ian has marketed for some of the world's best-known brands like Hewlett-Packard, Ryder, Force Factor, and CIT Bank. His content has been downloaded 50,000+ times and viewed by over 90% of the Fortune 500. His marketing has been featured in Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Adweek, Business Insider, Seeking Alpha, Tech Crunch, Y Combinator, and Lifehacker. With over 10 startups under his belt, Ian's been described as a serial entrepreneur— a badge he wears with pride. Ian's a published author and musician and when he's not obsessively testing the next marketing idea, he can be found hanging out with family and friends north of Boston.

Subscribe to Forward Weekly

Related posts.

Competitive Positioning: Strategies for Business Success

The Ultimate Local SEO Checklist for Better Search Rankings

Long-Tail Keyword Examples for Successful SEO Marketing

Top Keyword Research Tools for Effective SEO Marketing

Leave a Reply

Get The Marketing Strategies in Your Inbox

Sign up for our 1x a week newsletter (no spam!)

Popular Posts

Get the Guide

You'll learn how to:

• Generate more demand for your product or service
• What channels to start with at first
• Strategies to maximize your lead generation
• And so much more!

Houston, we have a problem... you need to login first!

Register For This Site

A password will be e-mailed to you.

Get In-Depth Marketing Strategies

Sign up to get in-depth marketing strategies, tactics, and case studies delivered right to your inbox.

100% privacy. We will never spam you!

Copyright @ MarketingStrategy.com 2024. All Right Reserved.

Hey there! Free trials are available for Standard and Essentials plans. Start for free today.

How to Create a Successful Promotional Strategy that Maximizes Sales Potential

Looking to boost sales and get more traffic to your website? Try a promotion. When marketed well, promotions are ideal strategies for reaching out to existing and new customers.

A promotion gives your audience an explicit incentive to buy. It creates urgency for casual browsers to convert. It attracts value-seekers and nudges fence-sitters to finally click “buy now.”

A promotion also helps you achieve long-term growth. With the right marketing plan, your promotion can capture a new cohort of shoppers and nurture them into long-term customers. But first, you need a strategy for creating and publicizing your promotion.

8 Tips for creating a strong promotional strategy

Most promotions have 2 primary goals: to increase revenue and maximize market exposure. As you create a strategy geared toward those goals, remember the following tips.

1. Keep promotions simple

You’re likely to get a high response rate if your promotions are easy to understand and redeem. The simplest strategy is to discount the item for everyone. If you strike out the original price on your website and display the new price, perhaps in a bolded font, people can easily see the benefit of the promotion.

Another option is to use promo codes. When you go this route, you need to make sure that the promo code is straightforward to use. Don’t make it so that people have to hunt down the code once they’re on your website.

If you’re sending an email, display the promo code prominently so people can go back and find it if they forget to copy it. Consider publishing the code on your website for easy access, too.

2. Bundle products together

One way companies sell more products is through bundling—offering 2 or more products for a combined cost that’s less than the total cost of the individual items when purchased separately. Merchants often use this strategy to move a product that isn’t selling well by pairing it with a popular product.

Say that you’re a jewelry retailer with earrings priced at $20 a pair and bracelets at $10 a pair. Your earrings are flying off the shelves, but no one’s biting at the bracelets. By offering a bundle of one pair of earrings with one bracelet for $25, you could move your bracelet stock and potentially get more loyal followers in the process.

One famous example comes from Nintendo, which sold 100,000 more consoles and more than a million game cartridges when bundling the 2.

3. Reward customers to boost orders

You can increase the average value of your orders (AOV) by offering a freebie when a customer reaches a certain purchase threshold.

One popular version of this strategy is conditional free shipping—the “Free Shipping over $X” offer. One article explains that free shipping would increase the likelihood of an online purchase for about 80% of US customers . If you have a lot of orders totaling $60, consider offering free shipping at $75.

If you can’t afford to offer free shipping, that’s okay. Choose a small complimentary item to offer when an order reaches a certain threshold.

4. Reward top customers with special offers

Some data analytics indicate that existing customers spend 31% more than new buyers, and they’re 50% more likely to try a new product. You can boost that loyalty by rewarding your highest spenders with customized offers.

To get even more out of this strategy, encourage your rewarded customers to share their good fortune on social media. This is a great opportunity for a referral bonus.

5. Re-merchandise your product and homepage

Many retailers think of merchandising as a brick-and-mortar strategy, but it’s just as important for e-commerce. Your customers get used to seeing your page as it is. When you mix it up and add new visual elements, you draw attention to your promotion.

Consider remarketing your homepage and product pages when you start your promotion. A good way to start is by revamping your homepage, placing promoted products front and center. You can also revitalize any category and individual product pages, highlighting not only the promotion but also any accessories, add-ons, or popular related products.

6. Seed product reviews

Reviews matter to many customers. One study shows that close to 95% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase. On the retailer’s end, showing 5 reviews compared to no reviews for a product can increase conversions by up to 270% .

Before you run your promotion, make sure your products have good reviews. Meanwhile, start collecting original reviews. One particularly effective technique, especially for new product launches, is to send products to customers and ask for reviews. Then, with their permission, you can post them to your product pages.

Buyers can give you reviews as well. Mailchimp makes it easy to collect reviews from current customers through automated product follow-up emails . All you need to do is add language requesting a review of a recently purchased product, perhaps with a link to a review submission page on your website.

You can link to third-party review sites, too. Don’t worry if not all of the reviews there are glowing—research shows that negative reviews help to build trust and can lead to as many as 85% more conversions .

7. Test out different promotions

Different audiences respond to different promotions. Consider conducting A/B testing, an easy and effective way to understand how your audience engages.

A/B testing sends out 2 versions of a campaign—a percent-off promotion versus a dollars-off promotion, for example. Mailchimp offers A/B testing as a feature available in all paid plans, so you can easily refine your strategy and optimize your results.

8. Stay memorable

Consumers have promotions coming into their inboxes and social media feeds every day. It’s important for you to stand out as a brand, preferably with a personal touch. Consider adding a thank-you card or free sample item in the package to delight your customers.

Promote your promotion

Now that you have the insider knowledge to create a strong marketing promotional strategy, you can focus on publicizing the promotion. Build awareness to maximize your revenue potential.

Don’t worry—Mailchimp is here to help you every step of the way.

First, make sure your online store is connected to Mailchimp . With a connected store, you can unlock the e-commerce tools , insights , and data you need to sell more stuff—even with our free plan. Use Mailchimp's powerful tools to promote your promotions , and let their robust analytics show you which tools contribute most to your sales.

Email marketing may have a decades-long history, but it hasn’t lost any of its clout.

Promotions make your emails even more attractive to consumers.

Mailchimp makes it easy to send professional-quality promotional emails with their easy-to-use email builder. No need to spend time creating emails from scratch when Mailchimp's tool functionality and beautiful templates make the process a breeze.

Expert tip: As an added perk, give your most loyal customers early access to the promotion.

Social media

Social media ads and organic posts can publicize your promotion to new and existing customers. Target existing customers and find new customers with similar interests. And best of all Mailchimp makes it easy to build engaging ads . Your customers are on social media, so make sure that you don’t miss a sales opportunity to highlight your offers.

Retargeting

In the age of automation , it’s easy to set up messages to retarget customers who have gone astray. Maybe someone filled up a shopping cart and then decided against the purchase, or maybe they just browsed and then changed their mind. A promotion can get many of these people back on board with your company.

Mailchimp makes it easy to send customized abandoned cart and retargeting emails . Then, those people get special emails inviting them back to complete their purchase.

In today’s digital world, postcards can make a big impression. Mailchimp makes it easy to create and send promotional postcards to your most loyal customers. A postcard won’t get lost in their email inbox, and the sensory engagement factor will make shoppers feel special. Postcards are also a great way to target a select audience with personalized offers.

Turn first-time customers into loyal customers

Promotions are time-tested strategies for acquiring new customers, but you don’t want to stop there. Now that you know how to get people buying, it’s time to turn them into regular customers.

Loyalty is a key driver of repeat purchases. Here are some important tips that can help you turn new buyers into loyal customers.

Tag new customers

The more you know about your new customers, the better you can personalize messaging for them in the future. Make sure you’re tagging all of the new customers who visit your site during your promotion. Tag them based on what they shop for, and consider adding an Engages with Promotions tag.

Expert tip: For better conversions, use your audience tags to personalize future communications. Segmented, targeted, and personalized emails could generate a meaningful amount of revenue , and conversions can go up even more with more personalized pageviews .

Send welcome emails

Welcome emails are a great way to build relationships. If you’re not already doing it, add an option on your checkout page where customers can give you their email address and opt in to future messages. Get a welcome message out to everyone who signs up. Think of what a great first impression you’ll be leaving with your new customers.

Expert tip: If you set up an automation that sends out welcome emails to new customers, you can be sure those messages will go out consistently. Even better, it’ll happen without any ongoing effort on your part.

Keep communication going

Your new customers should keep hearing from you after the promotion is over. Use the tags you set up for those customers to send out personalized product recommendations.

Through your connected store, Mailchimp can help to predict what your customers will like, so you can send emails with product recommendations to encourage them to keep shopping.

Put your newest products and best-sellers front and center to drive interest. This refreshes customer engagement and keeps your brand at the top of buyers’ minds, helping you drive conversions.

Expert tip: Make sure your ecommerce store is connected to Mailchimp so that you can unlock even more tools to better target your customers.

Getting started with your promotion

With these tips in your knowledge toolbox, you’re ready to start designing your promotion and getting the word out about it.

If you’re already a Mailchimp user, you have plenty of tools at your disposal. Start with your audience dashboard . Look at who your customers are and what segments you might want to reach with your promotion.

Next, go to your website and start adding promotional content. If you have a site with Mailchimp , you can create unlimited landing pages for the promotion.

If you want to run a promotion and don’t currently have a website, don't worry—Mailchimp has you covered. Leverage their beautiful templates to quickly create a shoppable landing page so customers can purchase your products.

Mailchimp makes it easy for you to create effective multichannel marketing campaigns. With our reporting functionality, you can take these campaigns to the next level. You learn where you get the most engagement, who’s responding to you, and what your customers have in common. By reviewing this information after your campaign, you can continue to optimize promotional strategies.

Promotions are an impactful way of driving sales. The key is to create an attractive offer, market it smartly, and follow up in a way that earns the loyalty of both old and new buyers.

Your customers are waiting. It's time to start creating the kind of promotion that they can't resist.

Related Topics

• Retail Marketing
• E-Commerce Automations
• Abandoned Cart Emails
• Product Recommendations
• Start an E-Commerce Business

How to Create an Effective Promotional Marketing Strategy in 2024

What are the different ways you can promote your product or service? Dive into this guide to learn the best practices, examples, and different types of promotional marketing tactics you can adopt.

Aishwarya is a content and growth manager at Toplyne.io, a headless sales AI that helps increase ARR for SaaS startups. She is also a freelance content marketing specialist with a love for all things content and email marketing.

Learn about our

Mayple’s staff provide businesses with reliable insights to optimize their email marketing, paid advertising, eCommerce strategies, and more.

Updated December 17, 2023.

In today’s digital day and age, there are many different touchpoints like social media, email, push notifications, browser notifications, WhatsApp, and a lot more. You can leverage all these touchpoints to create a buzz about your promotional product, brand, or service to your target audience. This is where promotional marketing comes into the picture. Promotional activities belong to the 4Ps of Marketing and incorporate all the strategies you would employ to promote your product to potential customers. Let’s dive a little deeper.

What is promotional marketing?

Promotional marketing refers to the process of sharing information about a brand, product, or service through multiple marketing channels. It refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform the target audience of the relative merits of a product, service, or brand.

Promotional marketing channels could include things like email marketing, social media , paid advertising , and any other tactic to boost brand awareness and sales. Promotional marketing is the 3rd P of the famous 4Ps of the marketing mix and helps form the basis of your marketing strategy .

Goals of promotional marketing

Whenever you’re running any kind of marketing campaign, you must be clear about the goals and marketing KPIs of all your activities. The same is true for your promotional activities. Here are a few things that a solid promotional strategy can help you with.

Lead generation

 Promoting your services the right way can help generate leads that your marketing team can further nurture. Your goal here should be to build curiosity, creates that initial buzz, and help convert your site visitors into leads.

Building brand awareness

Another benefit of running a promotional campaign is to increase your brand awareness. That means staying top-of-mind for your consumers. Some examples of this could be social media campaigns, influencer marketing campaigns, or creative billboards.

Thought leadership

Another goal could be becoming a thought leader in your vertical. You do that by displaying your expertise through various forms of content marketing including - blogs, social media, PR, and promotions in magazines. Display your expertise through various forms of content including - blog posts, social media, magazines, videos, and PR.

A great example of this is Peloton, which has emerged as a brand that is synonymous with fitness, with a cult-like following for its products. This was primarily driven by their promotional activities.

Promote new features

You need a good promotional strategy when you launch a new product, which may require a strategic planning expert . You have to create a buzz around the benefits that your product or service provides and focus less on the various features it may have.

This keeps all your customers informed about the new ways they can use your product, helping you create more ToFu (top of the funnel) and BoFu (bottom of the funnel) leads.

Now that you know the goals of promotional marketing, let’s talk about its different types.

Types of promotional marketing

Personal selling.

Before the internet was born, all we had was personal selling. It’s when you interact with prospects on a one-on-one basis. The drawback here is that you have to be physically present in the same location as the customer, and that could get quite costly. On the other hand, it could bring that human touch, which is a big plus for certain niches.

Direct marketing

Direct Marketing is the use of channels like social media, conversational SMS , Whatsapp, emails, push notifications, and in-app notifications to build a relationship with potential customers. One example could be sending cart abandonment emails to help a customer complete their purchase.

Advertising

Advertising campaigns are great for creating brand awareness on a large scale. Ads play a pivotal role in making brands recognizable. A good ad with a targeted message can grab the attention of both existing and potential customers. Here’s an example of a Snapchat ad that brands could create to gain exposure to new audiences.

Advertising can be used by D2C eCommerce brands as well as SaaS companies and could include things like Facebook Advertising , Google Ads, native advertising, and physical billboards.

Public relations

Public relations helps you build a positive brand image and promote your product or service to a wider audience.

PR helps you:

• Discover the positive and negative associations customers have with your brand.
• Double down on what’s working
• Fix any negative connotations and respond to negative sentiment

Offline and online events are one of the most effective ways of generating leads. It also helps in promoting your brand as a thought leader in your industry.

Events like SaaStr, Dreamforce by Salesforce, Retail Innovation, and the Sellers Summit help SaaS and eCommerce brands get visibility, meet potential customers and stakeholders, and learn best practices from industry leaders.

Event marketing creates brand awareness and builds a strong identity for your brand. And if you’re in B2B, it helps you connect with customers on a more personal level.

So how do you create an effective promotional strategy?

6 ways to create an effective promotional marketing strategy

Here is a step-by-step process for creating an effective promotional strategy for your brand or product.

1. Define your target audience

The first step is to decide who you’re targeting. You should have comprehensive knowledge about your ideal customer profile (ICP). In case you don’t, here are some great questions to ask yourself:

• What is the age group of my target audience ?
• What is their geographic location?
• What are some of their pain points and how does my product/service resolve them?
• What are the factors affecting their buying decision?
• What are their profession and annual income?
• How does your product/service help resolve their pain points?
• Which digital channels and platforms do they use the most?
• What are the content formats they consume on a daily basis?
• What’s the best way to communicate with them?

By answering these questions, you should be able to create a few different customer personas, which you can use to create better messaging and improve your promotional campaigns. For more info, check out our guide on the best examples of customer segments .

2. Determine your budget

Next, define how much money you can spend on your promotional campaign. This is crucial in deciding which channels you should target and which marketing tools you should use.

You must decide if you want to have a fixed budget or a budget proportional to your revenue. Allocating budgets also gives you a sense of the success of your promotional activities as you calculate the return on investment (ROI) of all your activities.

3. Follow your audience

Now that you’ve determined your budget it’s time to tweak your targeting. Follow the digital footsteps of your target group and see where they hang out online. Your customer personas should help you understand which channels your audience uses, whether that’s Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

Don’t make the rookie mistake of spending time and effort on marketing without studying your user behavior.

4. Create the right marketing mix

Now that you have your marketing budget and audience and you’ve found out where they hang out online it’s time to finalize your marketing strategies. Determine which channels and tactics you want to use and create your copy and creatives.

Need help getting it all organized in one place? Use our marketing plan template .

5. Launch your campaign

Now you’re ready to launch your campaign. Make sure you use the best practices of each channel you’re promoting your products on to optimize your results.

6. Analyze the results

Measuring the results of your campaign is the most crucial part. It helps you keep track of your campaign performance and understand what you can improve on It also helps you calculate the ROI of your marketing activities. Besides tracking revenue, you can also track impressions and engagement for social media campaigns, event registrations for both online and offline events, and opens and click-through rates for email campaigns.

Now that you know how to set up a promotional campaign, let’s see some examples from the world’s coolest brands.

Examples of promotional marketing

Email marketing.

 Email marketing is one of the top promotional channels for brands. It’s relatively inexpensive, has a really high ROI, and can be used to create brand awareness and increase conversions.

It has a bunch of other benefits as well. It also makes it really easy to track all your user interactions and see who opened your email, clicked on each link, and converted on your site. 3 tips to drive amazing results with email:

• Make your copy engaging
• Write a compelling subject line
• Always use a clear CTA

Social media marketing

Social media marketing is another great way to promote your product or service. It’s a great place to interact with your target audience in a personal way and drive traffic back to your site.

Pick the best tactics based on your brand identity and the different personas in your target group. There are new features released every month so you have to stay on your toes and continue evolving your marketing strategy.

Here’s a creative example of Netflix promoting the new season of its hit TV show Stranger Things.

Some brands actively engage with their customers on social media, which can be really useful. It helps improve retention, attract new leads, and build an organic and authentic relationship with your existing customers. Here is an example of Sephora replying to its customers’ comments on its Instagram profile.

Content marketing

Content is a powerful tool to grow your organic traffic and your online audience, and position your brand as a leader in your niche. Content can be in the form of blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, and shopping guides.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is another great way to promote your product to a wider audience.

Depending on your goals and budget for these activities, you can decide the influencer that best suits your brand, and create compelling content in collaboration with them to promote your brand/product.

User Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC ) is original, product-specific content created by customers and uploaded on social media and the brand’s website. UGC comes in many forms, including social media static posts, videos, product reviews, testimonials, and even podcasts.

UGC has a very powerful impact on the buyer’s decision-making process because it’s so trustworthy and authentic.

Referral marketing

Referral marketing is another great strategy that involves asking your existing customers for referrals and generating that word-of-mouth effect.

It helps get your loyal customers to help spread awareness about your brand, turning them into brand advocates.

How do you create a promotional marketing strategy?

Step 1. establish your goals.

Be clear about what key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to drive using your promotional marketing strategy. Break down your long-term goals into short-term goals. For example , a 12-month plan can be broken down into a 6-month plan, a quarterly plan, and a monthly plan. This will help you prioritize tasks and gauge your team’s performance at a micro-level.

Allocate your budget

Evaluate your marketing budget to understand how much you can spend.

It’s a great idea to start with the lowest-hanging fruits. Go after the most promising channels for your business, or the ones with the biggest short-term ROI like email marketing, influencer marketing, and UGC.

Step 2. Identify your target audience

Next, identify your audience personas and decide on who you’re going to be targeting. You need to understand the demographics of your audience, their pain points, and various factors that affect their buying decision. Then, you can decide on the specific marketing channels you want to use.

Step 3. Choose strategies and tools

Once you identify your ideal customer profile it’s time to finalize your marketing strategy. Identify the right channels to target them based on their demographics, occupations, and other attributes that define their personas. Then, decide which marketing tools to use based on budget and goals.

Step 4. Hire the right marketing talent

Having the right marketing talent can make or break your marketing campaign.

Your ideal marketer or digital marketing agency needs to not only have experience working with your specific niche but also be able to understand your brand voice and align with the rest of your marketing team.

Luckily, Mayple has a community of vetted experts that are hand-picked for your project.

Marketers are selected based on proven experience in your niche, above-benchmark results, and experience working with your target audience and marketing budget. So instead of spending 3-6 months on hiring full-time employees, you can save time and resources by hiring an expert from Mayple’s platform, in 72 hours By opting for on-demand marketing services, you save time and effort in hiring a resource full-time, especially for projects that may need one-time setup and execution. Save yourself the learning curve of making mistakes and get proven expertise on board, to drive results.

With great promotion comes great marketing 😎

Promotion marketing makes a crucial contribution to the overall revenue driven by your marketing team. Even if you have a stellar website strategy and a great product, without a thorough and holistic promotion plan, your business won’t grow.

 Need help? Talk to one of our experts today. 

Related Articles

Daniel Madrid Spitz

What do iStore, Homestyle, and AvaTrade have in common?

Ben Kazinik

How to Work with YouTube Influencers in 2024

How to start working with a freelancer

Rakefet Yacoby From

Marketing Industry Trends Survey - How Brands Hire Marketers 2022

A Practical Guide to Using Automated Text Messages for eCommerce Marketing

• Marketing |
• How to create a winning marketing plan, ...

How to create a winning marketing plan, with 3 examples from world-class teams

A marketing plan helps leaders clearly visualize marketing strategies across channels, so they can ensure every campaign drives pipeline and revenue. In this article you’ll learn eight steps to create a winning marketing plan that brings business-critical goals to life, with examples from word-class teams.

To be successful as a marketer, you have to deliver the pipeline and the revenue.”

In other words—they need a well-crafted marketing plan.

Level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024

Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.

7 steps to build a comprehensive marketing plan

How do you build the right marketing plan to hit your revenue goals? Follow these eight steps for success:

1. Define your plan

First you need to define each specific component of your plan to ensure stakeholders are aligned on goals, deliverables, resources, and more. Ironing out these details early on ensures your plan supports the right business objectives, and that you have sufficient resources and time to get the job done. 

Get started by asking yourself the following questions: 

What resources do I need? 

What is the vision?

What is the value?

What is the goal?

Who is my audience?

What are my channels?

What is the timeline?

For example, imagine you’re creating an annual marketing plan to improve customer adoption and retention in the next fiscal year. Here’s how you could go through the questions above to ensure you’re ready to move forward with your plan: 

I will need support from the content team, web team, and email team to create targeted content for existing customers. One person on each team will need to be dedicated full-time to this initiative. To achieve this, the marketing team will need an additional $100K in budget and one new headcount. 

What is the vision?  

To create a positive experience for existing customers, address new customer needs, and encourage them to upgrade. We’ll do this by serving them how-to content, new feature updates, information about deals and pricing, and troubleshooting guides. 

According to the Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) , CEOs and go-to-market leaders report that more than 60% of their net-new revenue will come from existing customers in 2023. By retaining and building on the customers we have, we can maintain revenue growth over time. 

To decrease the customer churn rate from 30% to 10%, and increase upgrades from 20% to 30% in the next fiscal year. 

All existing customers. 

The main channel will be email. Supporting marketing channels include the website, blog, YouTube, and social media. 

The first half of the next fiscal year. 

One of the most important things to do as you create your marketing strategy is to identify your target audience . As with all marketing, you need to know who you’re marketing to. If you’re having a hard time determining who exactly your target audience is, try the bullseye targeting framework . The bullseye makes it easy for you to determine who your target audience is by industry, geography, company size, psychographics, demographics, and more.

2. Identify key metrics for success 

Now it’s time to define what key marketing metrics you’ll use to measure success. Your key metrics will help you measure and track the performance of your marketing activities. They’ll also help you understand how your efforts tie back to larger business goals. 

Once you establish key metrics, use a goal-setting framework—like objectives and key results (OKRs) or SMART goals —to fully flush out your marketing objectives. This ensures your targets are as specific as possible, with no ambiguity about what should be accomplished by when. 

Example: If a goal of your marketing plan is to increase email subscriptions and you follow the SMART goal framework (ensuring your objective is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) your goal might look like this: Increase email subscription rate from 10% to 20% in H1 . 

3. Research your competition 

It’s easy to get caught up in your company’s world, but there’s a lot of value in understanding your competitors . Knowing how they market themselves will help you find opportunities to make your company stand out and capture more market share.

Make sure you’re not duplicating your competitors’ efforts. If you discover a competitor has already executed your idea, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm new ways to differentiate yourself.  By looking at your competitors, you might be surprised at the type of inspiration and opportunities you’ll find.

To stay ahead of market trends, conduct a SWOT analysis for your marketing plan. A SWOT analysis helps you improve your plan by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

Example: If your competitor launches a social media campaign identical to what you had planned, go back to the drawing board and see how you can build off their campaign. Ask yourself: How can we differentiate our campaign while still getting our message across? What are the weaknesses of their campaign that we can capitalize on? What angles did they not approach?

4. Integrate your marketing efforts

Here’s where the fun comes in. Let’s dive into the different components that go into building a successful marketing plan. You’ll want to make sure your marketing plan includes multiple supporting activities that all add up into a powerful marketing machine. Some marketing plan components include: 

Lead generation

Social media

Product marketing

Public relations

Analyst relations

Customer marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Conversational marketing

Knowing where your consumer base spends the most time is significant for nailing this step. You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts. 

Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn. 

5. Differentiate with creative content

Forty-nine percent of marketers say visual images are hugely important to their content strategy. In other words, a clear brand and creative strategy is an essential component to every marketing plan. As you craft your own creative strategy, here are some tips to keep in mind: 

Speak to your audience: When defining your creative strategy, think about your audience—what you want them to feel, think, and do when they see your marketing. Will your audience find your creative work relevant? If your audience can’t relate to your creative work, they won’t feel connected to the story you’re trying to tell. 

Think outside the box: Find innovative ways to engage your audience, whether through video, animations, or interactive graphics. Know what screens your creative work will live on, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, and make sure they display beautifully and load quickly across every type of device. 

Tie everything back to CTAs: It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process, so it’s important to never lose sight of your ultimate goal: Get your audience to take action. Always find the best way to display strong Calls to Action (CTAs) in your creative work. We live in a visual world—make sure your creative content counts.

Streamline creative production:   Once you’ve established a strong creative strategy, the next step is to bring your strategy to life in the production stage. It’s vital to set up a strong framework for your creative production process to eliminate any unnecessary back and forth and potential bottlenecks. Consider establishing creative request forms , streamlining feedback and approval processes, and taking advantage of integrations that might make your designers’ lives easier.

Example: If your brand is fun and approachable, make sure that shows in your creative efforts. Create designs and CTAs that spark joy, offer entertainment, and alleviate the pressure in choosing a partner.

6. Operationalize your marketing plan

Turn your plan into action by making goals, deliverables, and timelines clear for every stakeholder—so teams stay accountable for getting work done. The best way to do this is by centralizing all the details of your marketing plan in one platform , so teams can access the information they need and connect campaign work back to company goals.  

With the right work management tool , you can: 

Set goals for every marketing activity, and connect campaign work to overarching marketing and business objectives so teams focus on revenue-driving projects. 

Centralize deliverables for your entire marketing plan in one project or portfolio .

Mark major milestones and visualize your plan as a timeline, Gantt chart, calendar, list, or Kanban board—without doing any extra work. 

Quickly loop in stakeholders with status updates so they’re always up to date on progress. This is extremely important if you have a global team to ensure efforts aren’t being duplicated. 

Use automations to seamlessly hand off work between teams, streamlining processes like content creation and reviews. 

Create dashboards to report on work and make sure projects are properly staffed , so campaigns stay on track. 

With everything housed in one spot, you can easily visualize the status of your entire marketing plan and keep work on track. Building an effective marketing plan is one thing, but how you operationalize it can be your secret to standout marketing.

Example: If your strategy focuses on increasing page views, connect all campaign work to an overarching OKR—like “we will double page views as measured by the amount of organic traffic on our blog.” By making that goal visible to all stakeholders, you help teams prioritize the right work. 

See marketing planning in action

With Asana, marketing teams can connect work, standardize processes, and automate workflows—all in one place.

7. Measure performance

Nearly three in four CMOs use revenue growth to measure success, so it’s no surprise that measuring performance is necessary. You established your key metrics in step two, and now it’s time to track and report on them in step eight.

Periodically measure your marketing efforts to find areas of improvement so you can optimize in real-time. There are always lessons to be learned when looking at data. You can discover trends, detect which marketing initiatives performed well, and course-correct what isn’t performing well. And when your plan is complete, you can apply these learnings to your next initiative for improved results. 

Example: Say you discover that long-form content is consistently bringing in 400% more page views than short-form content. As a result, you’ll want to focus on producing more long-form content in your next marketing plan.

Marketing plan examples from world-class teams

The best brands in the world bring their marketing plans to life every day. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these examples from successful marketing teams.

Autodesk grows site traffic 30% three years in a row

When the Autodesk team launched Redshift, it was initially a small business blog. The editorial team executed a successful marketing plan to expand it into a premier owned-media site, making it a destination for stories and videos about the future of making. 

The team scaled content production to support seven additional languages. By standardizing their content production workflow and centralizing all content conversations in one place, the editorial team now publishes 2X more content monthly. Read the case study to learn more about how Autodesk runs a well-oiled content machine.

Sony Music boosts creative production capacity by 4X

In recent years the music industry has gone through a pivotal transition—shifting from album sales to a streaming business model. For marketing and creative teams at Sony Music, that meant adopting an “always on” campaign plan. 

The team successfully executed this campaign plan by centralizing creative production and approvals in one project. By standardizing processes, the team reduced campaign production time by 75%. Read the case study to learn more about how Sony Music successfully scaled their creative production process.

Trinny London perfects new customer acquisition 

In consumer industries, social media is crucial for building a community of people who feel an affinity with the brand—and Trinny London is no exception. As such, it was imperative that Trinny London’s ad spend was targeted to the correct audience. Using a work management tool, Trinny London was able to nail the process of creating, testing, and implementing ads on multiple social channels.

With the help of a centralized tool, Trinny London improved its ad spend and drove more likes and subscriptions on its YouTube page. Read the case study to learn more about how Trinny London capitalized on paid advertising and social media. 

Turn your marketing plan into marketing success 

A great marketing plan promotes clarity and accountability across teams—so every stakeholder knows what they’re responsible for, by when. Reading this article is the first step to achieving better team alignment, so you can ensure every marketing campaign contributes to your company’s bottom line. 

Use a free marketing plan template to get started

Once you’ve created your marketing strategy and are ready to operationalize your marketing plan, get started with one of our marketing templates . 

Our marketing templates can help you manage and track every aspect of your marketing plan, from creative requests to approval workflows. Centralize your entire marketing plan in one place, customize the roadmap, assign tasks, and build a timeline or calendar. 

Once you’ve operationalized your entire marketing plan with one of our templates, share it with your stakeholders so everyone can work together in the same tool. Your entire team will feel connected to the marketing plan, know what to prioritize, and see how their work contributes to your project objectives . Choose the best marketing template for your team:

Marketing project plan template

Marketing campaign plan template

Product marketing launch template

Editorial calendar template

Agency collaboration template

Creative requests template

Event planning template

GTM strategy template

Still have questions? We have answers. 

What is a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a detailed roadmap that outlines the different strategies your team will use to achieve organizational objectives. Rather than focusing solely on the end goal, a marketing plan maps every step you need to reach your destination—whether that’s driving pipeline for sales, nurturing your existing customer base, or something in-between. 

As a marketing leader, you know there’s never a shortage of great campaign and project ideas. A marketing plan gives you a framework to effectively prioritize work that aligns to overarching business goals—and then get that work done. Some elements of marketing plans include:

Current business plan

Mission statement  

Business goals

Target customers  

Competitive analysis 

Current marketing mix

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Marketing budget  

What is the purpose of a marketing plan?

The purpose of a marketing plan is to grow your company’s consumer base and strengthen your brand, while aligning with your organization’s mission and vision . The plan should analyze the competitive landscape and industry trends, offer actionable insights to help you gain a competitive advantage, and document each step of your strategy—so you can see how your campaigns work together to drive overarching business goals. 

What is the difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy? 

A marketing plan contains many marketing strategies across different channels. In that way, marketing strategies contribute to your overall marketing plan, working together to reach your company’s overarching business goals.

For example, imagine you’re about to launch a new software product and the goal of your marketing plan is to drive downloads. Your marketing plan could include marketing strategies like creating top-of-funnel blog content and launching a social media campaign. 

What are different types of marketing plans? 

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, what your timeline is, or which facet of marketing you’re driving, you’ll need to create a different type of marketing plan. Some different types of marketing plans include, but aren’t limited to:

General marketing plan: A general marketing plan is typically an annual or quarterly marketing plan that details the overarching marketing strategies for the period. This type of marketing plan outlines marketing goals, the company’s mission, buyer personas, unique selling propositions, and more. A general marketing plan lays the foundation for other, more specific marketing plans that an organization may employ. 

Product launch marketing plan: A product launch marketing plan is a step-by-step plan for marketing a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you build awareness and interest by targeting the right audience, with the right messaging, in the right timeframe—so potential customers are ready to buy your new offering right away. Nailing your product launch marketing plan can reinforce your overall brand and fast-track sales. For a step-by-step framework to organize all the moving pieces of a launch, check out our product marketing launch template .

Paid marketing plan: This plan includes all the paid strategies in your marketing plan, like pay-per-click, paid social media advertising, native advertising, and display advertising. It’s especially important to do audience research prior to launching your paid marketing plan to ensure you’re maximizing ROI. Consult with content strategists to ensure your ads align with your buyer personas so you know you’re showing ads to the right people. 

Content marketing plan: A content marketing plan outlines the different content strategies and campaigns you’ll use to promote your product or service. When putting together a content marketing plan, start by identifying your audience. Then use market research tools to get the best insights into what topics your target audience is most interested in.

SEO marketing plan: Your SEO marketing plan should work directly alongside your content marketing plan as you chart content that’s designed to rank in search results. While your content marketing plan should include all types of content, your SEO marketing plan will cover the top-of-funnel content that drives new users to your site. Planning search engine-friendly content is only one step in your SEO marketing plan. You’ll also need to include link-building and technical aspects in order to ensure your site and content are as optimized as possible.

Social media marketing plan: This plan will highlight the marketing strategies you plan to accomplish on social media. Like in any general or digital marketing plan , your social media strategy should identify your ideal customer base and determine how they engage on different social media platforms. From there, you can cater your social media content to your target audience.  

Related resources

How Asana uses work management for smoother creative production

Build a marketing operations strategy in 4 steps

How Asana uses work management for more impactful campaigns

Marketing vs. advertising: What’s the difference?

• Entrepreneurship
• Starting a Business
• My #1 Online Biz
• Business Planning

Advertising

Content marketing.

• Digital Marketing

Public Relations

• Business Model
• Financial Forecasting
• Market Research
• Risk Management
• Business Plan
• Conferences
• Online Communities
• Professional Associations
• Social Media
• Human Resource
• Productivity
• Legal Requirements
• Business Structure
• Mission Statement
• Financial Plan
• Market Analysis
• Operational Plan
• SWOT Analysis
• Target Market
• Competitor Analysis
• Customer Profiling
• Market Trends
• Pricing Strategies
• Sole Proprietorship
• Partnership
• Cooperative
• Corporation
• Limited Liability

Effective Business Promotion Strategies You Need to Try

by Mike Vestil  

Promotion strategies refer to the various approaches that businesses use to make their products and services known to the public. In a world where consumers face countless options, businesses need to use promotion strategies that differentiate them from their competitors.

Promotion strategies can range from advertising, personal selling, sales promotions to public relations. They are designed to create brand awareness , generate interest, and ultimately drive sales. In this article, we will delve into the various types of promotion strategies and explore how businesses can leverage them to create successful marketing campaigns.

Introduction

Promotion strategies refer to the techniques and methods that businesses use to market their products and/or services to their target audience. These strategies are designed to increase brand awareness, attract new customers, and retain existing ones. Effective promotion strategies can help businesses achieve their goals by creating a connection between the brand and its customers, increasing sales, and enhancing the overall brand perception.

A promotion strategy might include a range of marketing activities, such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing, and public relations. The specific mix of promotion strategies used will depend on the nature of the product or service, the target audience, and the overall marketing objectives.

Promotion strategies are vital for businesses as they provide a means of reaching their target market efficiently and effectively. Promotion strategies play a critical role in promoting products and services and building trust between businesses and their customers. Promotion strategies are an essential component of a business’s overall marketing mix and are used to increase brand awareness, generate leads, build customer loyalty, and increase sales. Having a solid understanding of how to use promotion strategies effectively can significantly contribute to the success and growth of a business .

Promotion strategies have numerous goals, including increasing sales, creating brand awareness, generating leads, building customer loyalty, and driving conversions. The ultimate goal of a promotion strategy is to increase revenue and profits by effectively targeting and communicating with the target audience.

It is critical for businesses to set clear objectives when it comes to promotion strategies and to measure the success of those strategies using appropriate metrics. Measuring the success of promotion strategies can help businesses understand which strategies are effective and which ones need to be improved or modified.

Promotion strategies are critical to the success of any business, regardless of its size or industry. The primary goal of promotion is to create brand awareness, generate interest, and drive sales. The importance of promotion strategies lies in their ability to increase revenue, build customer loyalty, and gain a competitive advantage. By creating a strong brand image and effectively communicating the unique value proposition of a product or service, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors and establish a strong market position.

Effective promotion strategies can also help businesses to stay relevant and top-of-mind with customers. As consumer preferences and market trends evolve, it is important for businesses to adapt their messaging and tactics to remain competitive. By regularly communicating with customers through various channels such as social media, email, and print advertisements, businesses can stay engaged with their target audience and build lasting relationships.

In addition, promotion strategies can also help businesses to reach new audiences and expand their customer base. Through tactics such as influencer marketing, search engine optimization, and content marketing, businesses can tap into new markets and attract customers who may not have been aware of their brand or offerings before. By targeting specific demographics and geographic locations, businesses can also maximize the effectiveness of their promotion strategies and optimize their return on investment (ROI).

Overall, the importance of promotion strategies cannot be overstated. They are an essential component of any successful marketing plan, and can have a significant impact on business growth and profitability. By leveraging the right promotion tactics and consistently communicating with customers, businesses can establish a strong brand identity, build customer loyalty, and stay competitive in today’s dynamic marketplace.

One of the most crucial aspects of any promotion strategy is setting clear and attainable goals. Goals provide direction, focus, and a framework for measuring the success of a campaign. Without clear goals, a promotional campaign risks wasting resources and failing to achieve any meaningful results. When setting promotion goals, it is important to consider the specific needs and objectives of the business.

These goals should align with the overall marketing strategy and support the company’s broader mission and values. Common promotion goals may include building brand awareness, increasing sales, generating leads, or promoting a specific product or service. To effectively set promotion goals, it is necessary to establish metrics to measure progress and success.

These metrics may take the form of website traffic, social media engagement, email sign-ups, or conversions. Similarly, goals should be time-bound, with specific deadlines for achieving each objective. As such, a promotion strategy must be tailored to meet the needs and goals of each individual organization.

Traditional Promotion Strategies

The first strategy we’ll consider is advertising. Advertising has long been a staple of marketing campaigns, and for good reason – it can be a highly effective way to raise awareness of your brand and products. There are many different types of advertising, including television, radio, print, and online ads.

Each type has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s important to choose the one(s) that will be most effective for your business. Television ads, for example, are great for reaching a wide audience, but can be extremely expensive. Print ads, on the other hand, are typically more affordable and can be targeted to specific geographic areas or demographics.

Online ads are becoming increasingly popular, thanks in part to their lower cost and the ability to target specific audiences based on search history and other factors. Ultimately, the key to success with advertising is to create a compelling message that resonates with your target audience and to choose the right medium(s) to deliver that message.

Sales Promotion

Sales promotion is a type of promotion strategy that involves offering a variety of incentives or special deals to encourage customers to purchase certain products or services. This type of promotion can be especially effective in generating sales and building customer loyalty when it is combined with other types of marketing efforts, such as advertising and personal selling.

Some common methods of sales promotion include coupons, discounts, contests, and rebates. These promotional offers can be communicated directly to customers through a variety of channels, including social media, email marketing, and in-store displays.

One of the key advantages of sales promotion is that it can be used to drive quick and measurable results. By offering a discount or special deal, businesses can attract customers who might not have considered purchasing their products or services otherwise. In addition, these types of promotions can be effective in encouraging repeat business and building customer loyalty. However, it is important for businesses to carefully track the results of their sales promotion efforts to ensure that they are achieving their desired outcomes.

One potential drawback to using sales promotion as a primary strategy is that it can be costly to run promotions on a regular basis. Discounts and other incentives can eat into profit margins, especially if they are not carefully targeted to the right audience.

Additionally, some customers may become accustomed to the low prices associated with sales promotions and may be less willing to purchase products or services at full price in the future. To avoid these pitfalls, it is important for businesses to carefully plan and execute their sales promotion efforts to ensure that they are generating the desired return on investment.

In conclusion, sales promotion can be a highly effective strategy for businesses looking to generate quick sales and build customer loyalty. However, it is important for businesses to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of this approach, and to look for ways to integrate sales promotion with other marketing efforts to achieve the best possible results.

Public relations (PR) is a crucial element of any successful promotion strategy. It involves managing communication and relationships between an organization and its stakeholders, including customers, employees, investors, and the media. Effective PR can help a company build a favorable brand image, enhance its reputation, and create a strong connection with its target audience.

PR activities may include media relations, crisis management, press releases, event planning, and content creation. A key aspect of PR is ensuring that the right message is conveyed to the right audience through the right channels. Consequently, researching and understanding your target audience is critical for developing successful PR campaigns.

Brands can leverage social media, influencer partnerships, and thought leadership to amplify their message and achieve their objectives. The benefits of a well-executed PR campaign extend beyond immediate promotional outcomes, with PR helping to build long-term brand equity and customer loyalty.

Personal Selling

Personal selling is a promotional strategy that involves direct, face-to-face interaction between a salesperson and a potential customer. This strategy is used in industries where the products or services being sold are complex or require a certain level of expertise to comprehend. The salesperson serves as a representative of the company and aims to establish a relationship with the customer based on trust and credibility. Through personal selling, salespeople can gather information about the customer’s needs, preferences, and budget which can be used to tailor the product or service to meet those requirements.

One of the advantages of personal selling is the ability to provide personalized attention to the customer, which can lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Another advantage is the ability to provide immediate feedback to the customer’s objections or concerns, which can increase the likelihood of making a sale. Personal selling also allows salespeople to cross-sell or up-sell additional products or services that the customer may not have considered otherwise.

However, personal selling can be costly in terms of time and money as it requires a well-trained sales staff, high-quality sales tools and materials, and extensive travel. Additionally, some customers may find personal selling to be intrusive and pushy, which can damage the company’s image and reputation. To mitigate these risks, companies should carefully select and train their sales staff, establish clear and ethical sales practices, and use personal selling as a supplement to other promotional strategies rather than the sole strategy.

Digital Promotion Strategies

Social media marketing.

Social media marketing is a popular promotion strategy that involves using social media platforms to reach and engage with a target audience. With the increasing number of people using social media, it has become a vital part of businesses’ marketing plans. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram , Twitter, and LinkedIn offer businesses an opportunity to establish and grow their online presence, increase brand awareness, and connect with potential customers.

By creating engaging content, engaging with followers, leveraging user-generated content, and running targeted ads, businesses can effectively promote their brand and offerings on social media.

The effectiveness of social media marketing for businesses depends on the platform and target audience. Some social media platforms are more popular among certain demographics, while others are better suited for specific types of businesses. For example, Instagram is a popular platform for businesses that want to showcase visual content, while LinkedIn is more suitable for B2B marketing. To maximize the effectiveness of social media marketing, businesses need to understand their target audience’s social media behavior, preferences, and interests.

One of the advantages of social media marketing is that it allows businesses to build a community around their brand. By creating and sharing content that resonates with their target audience, businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders and develop a loyal following of customers and brand ambassadors.

Social media also offers businesses an opportunity to engage in two-way conversations with their followers, respond to feedback and inquiries, and address customer concerns in real-time. By leveraging social media tools like hashtags and mentions, businesses can also expand their reach and increase their content’s visibility.

However, social media marketing also comes with its challenges. The constantly changing algorithms of social media platforms make it difficult for businesses to achieve organic reach, and the increasing competition for user attention poses a significant challenge.

To overcome these challenges, businesses need to stay updated on the latest social media trends, experiment with different types of content, and invest in paid social media advertising to reach a wider audience. By carefully planning and executing their social media marketing strategy, businesses can effectively promote their brand and offerings on social media and drive significant business results.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a key aspect of digital marketing that allows businesses to increase their online visibility through organic search engine rankings. SEO involves optimizing website content to make it more relevant and attractive to search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. This is achieved through a variety of strategies, including keyword research and optimization, on-page optimization, and link building.

Keyword research involves identifying the most relevant and valuable search terms for a particular business or industry. These keywords are then strategically integrated into website content and meta data to improve search engine rankings for those terms.

On-page optimization involves ensuring that website content is structured in a way that is easy for search engines to read and understand. This includes optimizing page titles, headings, URLs, and meta tags, as well as improving page load speed and mobile responsiveness. Link building involves the process of acquiring high-quality links from other websites to improve the authority and credibility of a business’s website in the eyes of search engines.

SEO is a long-term marketing strategy that requires ongoing effort and investment. However, the benefits of SEO can be significant, including increased website traffic, higher search engine rankings, and improved brand visibility.

SEO is particularly valuable for small and medium-sized businesses that may not have the resources to compete with larger, more established businesses in other marketing channels. By investing in SEO, these businesses can gain a competitive advantage and reach a wider audience online.

One of the challenges of SEO is that search engine algorithms are constantly changing, making it important for businesses to stay up-to-date with the latest SEO best practices and trends. This includes monitoring website analytics and search engine rankings, as well as staying up-to-date with changes to search engine algorithms and industry trends.

By staying informed and adapting their strategies accordingly, businesses can maximize the effectiveness of their SEO efforts and continue to achieve long-term success in the competitive online marketplace.

Content marketing is a marketing approach that involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a specific audience. The purpose of content marketing is to drive profitable customer action by providing useful information that solves problems, answers questions or satisfies customer needs.

Content marketing is a long-term strategy that aims to build brand loyalty, authority, and credibility. To succeed in content marketing, businesses need to have a deep understanding of their audience, create a content strategy, and develop high-quality content that aligns with their brand values and goals. The content should be optimized for search engines to rank high in search results and be shareable on social media platforms to increase its reach.

Businesses can use different types of content, such as blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, and e-books, among others, to engage their audience and build their reputation as thought leaders in their industry. Effective content marketing creates a two-way conversation with the audience, which can lead to customer engagement, conversion, and retention.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a crucial component of any successful promotion strategy. This approach involves the use of email to convey messages to targeted audiences. The goal of email marketing is to attract new customers while building relationships with existing ones. Marketers can use email to deliver promotional offers, newsletters, and other types of content to subscribers.

The content of the email must be engaging, personalized, and relevant to recipients to maximize the chances that they will open and read it. Marketers can use several tactics to optimize their email marketing campaigns, including segmenting their email list to tailor messages to specific groups, creating attention-grabbing subject lines, and including clear calls to action (CTAs) in the content. Personalization is also critical to success, as customers are more likely to engage with emails that are customized to their interests and preferences.

Another key factor in successful email marketing is tracking and analyzing performance metrics. This approach allows marketers to determine which messages are resonating with recipients and which ones are not. Click-through rates (CTRs), open rates, and conversion rates can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns. Analyzing these metrics can help marketers identify trends, test new approaches, and refine their strategy over time.

With the rise of social media and other forms of digital communication, some might argue that email marketing has become less relevant. However, this approach remains a powerful tool for reaching targeted audiences and delivering personalized messages that resonate with customers. By incorporating email marketing into their overall promotion strategy, marketers can build stronger relationships with their customers while driving conversions and boosting revenue.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing is a type of marketing that involves partnering with individuals or groups who have a significant following on social media to promote a brand, product or services. The goal of this marketing technique is to leverage the authenticity and trust that comes with celebrities or influencers’ endorsements to reach a wider audience, improve brand image and ultimately drive sales. There are several ways to approach influencer marketing, and the success of the campaign depends on finding the right influencer whose audience aligns with the brand’s target audience.

One way to approach influencer marketing is through celebrity endorsement. Celebrity endorsement involves partnering with well-known personalities to endorse a product or service on social media platforms. The logic is simple, celebrities have a large following on social media, and their endorsements can have a significant impact on a brand’s reputation and sales. However, celebrity endorsement can be costly, and it may not always be effective in driving sales.

Another way to approach influencer marketing is through micro-influencers. Micro-influencers are individuals with a smaller following on social media, typically between 1,000 to 100,000, and are more niche-specific. Although micro-influencers have a smaller following, they have a more engaged audience, promoting higher conversion rates. Micro-influencers’ authenticity and credibility in their niche make them effective in driving sales and improving brand image.

Brands can also opt for macro-influencers, who have a larger following, typically above 100,000. Macro-influencers are well-known personalities and may come with a hefty price tag. The downside of macro-influencers is that their audience may not align with the brand’s target audience, leading to poor conversion rates and ineffective campaigns.

The success of an influencer marketing campaign depends on several factors, including the strategy used, the influencer’s audience, and the campaign’s objectives. Additionally, it is essential to establish a good relationship with the influencer, ensuring that they understand the brand’s values, objectives and message. Evaluation and analysis of the campaign’s performance can provide insight into areas that need improvement, leading to successful campaigns in the future.

Integrated Promotion Strategies

Promotion strategies can be defined as the various techniques and methods that businesses use to communicate with their target audience and increase the visibility and awareness of their products or services.

These strategies can range from traditional advertising tactics like print, radio and TV commercials, billboards, and direct mail campaigns, to digital marketing approaches like social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and search engine optimization. The overarching goal of promotion strategies is to attract the attention of potential customers, create interest in the products, and ultimately, drive conversions and sales.

Effective promotion strategies can offer a variety of benefits for businesses of all sizes and industries. A well-executed promotion strategy can increase brand recognition, build product awareness, drive sales and revenue, and foster customer loyalty. It can also provide a competitive edge in the marketplace, allowing businesses to stand out from their competitors and capture greater market share. By leveraging the right promotion strategies, businesses can effectively communicate their unique value proposition to their target audience, build trust and credibility, and cultivate long-term relationships with customers.

There are many examples of successful promotion strategies that businesses can use as models for their own marketing efforts. For instance, a business might use influencer marketing to partner with high-profile individuals in their industry and leverage their social media influence to reach a wider audience. Alternatively, they might use experiential marketing to engage consumers directly with their product, creating memorable and immersive experiences that build brand affinity. Another strategy might involve leveraging user-generated content to create a sense of community and social proof around their brand or product.

One of the most important aspects of any promotion strategy is understanding the benefits such a strategy can have for a business. The benefits of implementing a promotion strategy are numerous and can have a significant impact on a business’s bottom line. Firstly, promotion strategies can help businesses increase brand awareness.

By promoting products or services on various channels, businesses can increase their visibility and ultimately attract new customers. Secondly, promotion strategies can help businesses deepen customer loyalty. By offering discounts or rewards, businesses can incentivize their customers to continue purchasing from them. Thirdly, promotion strategies can help businesses increase sales. By offering limited-time promotions, businesses can create a sense of urgency in customers, ultimately leading to increased sales. Fourthly, promotion strategies can help businesses gain a competitive edge.

Businesses can use promotions to differentiate themselves from competitors and create a unique selling proposition. Finally, promotion strategies can help businesses gain valuable insights into customer behavior. By tracking the success of promotions, businesses can gain a better understanding of what their customers respond to and adjust their overall marketing strategy accordingly.

The subsection Examples is a crucial component of a comprehensive discussion on promotion strategies. This section provides concrete instances of how promotion strategies work in practice, making it easier for business owners and marketers to see how these strategies can be adapted to their specific circumstances.

One example of a promotion strategy is social media ads. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer ample opportunities for businesses to create targeted advertisements that reach specific groups of people based on their demographics, interests, behavior, and other factors. Another example of a promotion strategy is email marketing.

Email marketing involves sending newsletters, promotional messages, and other types of communication to a list of subscribers who have opted in to receive updates from the business. This method is effective because it allows businesses to communicate directly with potential customers who have already expressed an interest in their products or services.

Other examples of promotion strategies include influencer marketing, SEO, content marketing, and offline advertising such as billboards, TV and radio commercials. By incorporating different promotion strategies and monitoring their effectiveness, businesses can create a comprehensive marketing plan that reaches their target audience and drives conversions.

Choosing the Right Promotion Strategy

Factors to consider.

In every promotion strategy, there are a myriad of factors to consider in ensuring its effectiveness. One significant factor to consider is the target audience. Knowing the audience is key to crafting a promotion strategy that will resonate with them. It is essential to understand the audience’s demographics, preferences, interests, and behaviors. This information helps tailor the message to the audience, resulting in more successful promotion campaigns.

Another crucial factor is the promotion platform. The platform determines where the message will be communicated and to whom. It is essential to choose the platform that matches the target audience, especially if there are several platforms available. Different platforms have different audiences, and choosing the wrong platform could lead to the promotion message reaching the wrong target audience. Some common promotion platforms include social media, email marketing, television, radio, and print media.

The promotion budget is also an important factor to consider. The amount of money available for promoting a product or service determines the extent of the promotion campaign. A bigger budget translates to a broader reach, and therefore more potential customers. The budget also determines the specific promotion methods that can be used. Some methods are more expensive than others, and this could limit the promotion strategy if there isn’t enough money.

Timing is also a critical factor in promotion strategies. There are times when it’s beneficial to promote a product than others. For instance, during holiday seasons, people tend to be more receptive to promotional messages and more willing to buy. Other important timing factors include product launch dates, sales periods, and market trends. A promotion campaign that is timed well increases the chances of meeting the target audience at the right time for the highest chance of sales and reception.

Competition is another factor that needs to be taken into account when crafting a promotion strategy. Competitors’ promotion campaigns can impact the effectiveness of one’s own promotion plan. If competitors are highly effective in promoting their products, it’s paramount to craft a strategy that outperforms them. This could include using a distinct promotional approach or offering a unique value proposition that sets the product or service apart from competitor offerings.

Evaluation Methods

Evaluating the effectiveness of promotion strategies is critical to their success. Evaluating promotion strategies can involve a variety of methods. One common method is tracking sales, which involves monitoring the number of sales during a certain promotional period, and comparing these sales to the number of sales during a non-promotional period.

This method can be useful for determining the impact of a promotion on sales. Another method of evaluating promotion strategies is through consumer surveys. Surveys can provide valuable information on consumer attitudes towards promotional activities, as well as insight into the effectiveness of different promotion strategies. Additionally, experiments can be conducted to test the impact of different advertising messages or promotional activities.

Another way to evaluate promotion strategies is to analyze web traffic. This can be done by monitoring website traffic before and after a promotion to see if there is an increase in activity. This method can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of specific promotional tactics, such as social media campaigns or email marketing.

It is important to consider multiple evaluation methods when assessing the effectiveness of promotion strategies. Different methods may provide different insights into the same promotion, and using multiple methods can help provide a more complete picture. However, it is important to keep in mind that no single evaluation method is perfect, and each may have its own limitations. Therefore, it is important to choose the evaluation methods that are most appropriate for the specific promotion being evaluated.

Promotions are an essential aspect of marketing that aims to increase the visibility and appeal of products and services to the target market. This article explores various promotion strategies used in marketing and their effectiveness in reaching out to customers. To promote products, businesses can use advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing.

Advertising involves using mass media, such as television, radio, newspapers, and online platforms, to generate awareness and interest in products. Personal selling involves using interpersonal communication to create relationships with customers and persuade them to buy products. Sales promotion includes offering incentives like discounts, giveaways, and loyalty programs to attract customers.

Public relations involve using non-paid communication such as press releases and events to enhance the image of the brand. Direct marketing involves targeting individuals or groups through mail, email, and other channels to communicate relevant information and offers about the product.

Future trends in promotion strategies include the integration of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality. These technologies can create more engaging and interactive promotional experiences that can capture the attention of the target audience.

Another trend is the use of influencer marketing, where businesses partner with social media influencers to promote their products to their followers. This method seeks to leverage the trust and influence of these individuals to increase brand awareness among their audience. Additionally, businesses are increasingly using data analytics to gain insights into consumer behavior and preferences, allowing them to tailor their promotional messages and offers to specific market segments.

It is crucial for businesses to carefully plan and implement their promotion strategies to ensure they are relevant, effective, and resonate with their target customers. By using a combination of the above strategies and keeping up with the latest trends, businesses can create a strong brand presence and achieve their marketing goals.

Future Trends

As technology continues to advance, the future of promotion strategies looks promising. One trend that is already emerging is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in advertising. AI can help companies target their audience more effectively by analyzing consumer data and optimizing ad placements. This will lead to more personalized advertising, which consumers are more likely to engage with.

Additionally, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) may become more prevalent in promotion strategies. With AR, customers can experience products in a more interactive and immersive way, leading to increased engagement and potential sales. VR can also be utilized for virtual product demonstrations and simulated experiences, giving customers a better understanding of what they are buying before making a purchase.

Another trend expected to continue is the use of influencer marketing. Influencers have already proven to be highly effective in promoting products and services, and this trend is likely to continue in the future. However, the way in which influencer marketing is executed may evolve, with a focus on micro-influencers or nano-influencers who have smaller, more engaged audiences. This shift will allow companies to reach a more specific target demographic and potentially see higher conversion rates.

With the increasing importance of sustainability, companies may also incorporate eco-friendly promotion strategies in the future. This could include reducing packaging waste or utilizing more ethical advertising practices. Consumers are becoming more conscious of their impact on the environment, and companies that align with their values may see increased loyalty and support.

Lastly, the rise of social media is unlikely to slow down, and companies will continue to utilize these platforms in their promotion strategies. However, they may shift their focus to more niche social media channels that cater to specific demographics or interests. This will allow them to reach their target audience more efficiently and effectively.

Overall, the future of promotion strategies is exciting, with the emergence of new technologies, a growing focus on sustainability, and the continued importance of social media and influencer marketing.

Promotion Strategies — FAQ

What is a promotion strategy.

A promotion strategy is a method used by businesses to increase sales or brand awareness. It typically involves a combination of advertising, public relations, sales promotions, personal selling, and direct marketing.

What are the different types of promotion strategies?

The different types of promotion strategies include advertising, public relations, sales promotions, personal selling, and direct marketing.

What is the purpose of a promotion strategy?

The purpose of a promotion strategy is to increase sales or brand awareness for a business. This can be achieved through various methods such as advertising, public relations, sales promotions, personal selling, and direct marketing.

What are the benefits of using a promotion strategy?

The benefits of using a promotion strategy include increased sales, increased brand awareness, improved customer loyalty, and better customer engagement.

How can a business determine which promotion strategy to use?

To determine which promotion strategy to use, a business should consider its target audience, budget, goals, and overall marketing strategy.

What are some common mistakes businesses make when implementing a promotion strategy?

Some common mistakes businesses make when implementing a promotion strategy include lack of clear goals, inadequate budget, inconsistent messaging, and failure to track and measure results.

Learn how to make passive income online

I've put together a free training on *How We Used The Brand New "Silver Lining Method" To Make $3k-$10k/mo (profit) With Just A Smart Phone In As Little As 8 Weeks …

About the author 

Mike Vestil

Mike Vestil is an author, investor, and speaker known for building a business from zero to $1.5 million in 12 months while traveling the world.

Session expired

Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.

12.5 Promotion Strategy

• What is promotion, and what are the key elements of a promotional mix?

Promotion is an attempt by marketers to inform, persuade, or remind consumers and B2B users to influence their opinion or elicit a response. Most firms use some form of promotion. Because company goals vary widely, so do promotional strategies. The goal is to stimulate action from the people or organizations of a target market. In a profit-oriented firm, the desired action is for the consumer to buy the promoted item. Mrs. Smith’s, for instance, wants people to buy more frozen pies. Not-for-profit organizations seek a variety of actions with their promotions. They tell us not to litter, to buckle up, to join the military, or to attend the ballet. (These are examples of products that are ideas marketed to specific target markets.)

Promotional goals include creating awareness, getting people to try products, providing information, retaining loyal customers, increasing the use of products, and identifying potential customers, as well as teaching potential service clients what is needed to “co-create” the services provided. Any promotional campaign may seek to achieve one or more of these goals:

Creating awareness: All too often, firms go out of business because people don’t know they exist or what they do. Small restaurants often have this problem. Simply putting up a sign and opening the door is rarely enough. Promotion through ads on social media platforms and local radio or television, coupons in local papers, flyers, and so forth can create awareness of a new business or product.

Large companies often use catchy slogans to build brand awareness. For example, Dodge’s wildly successful ads where a guy in a truck yells over to another truck at a stoplight, “Hey, that thing got a Hemi?” has created a huge number of new customers for Dodge trucks. Hemi has become a brand within a brand. Now, Chrysler is extending the Hemi engine to the Jeep brand, hoping for the same success.

Getting consumers to try products: Promotion is almost always used to get people to try a new product or to get nonusers to try an existing product. Sometimes free samples are given away. Lever, for instance, mailed over two million free samples of its Lever 2000 soap to targeted households. Coupons and trial-size containers of products are also common tactics used to tempt people to try a product. Celebrities are also used to get people to try products. Oprah Winfrey, for example, recently partnered with Kraft Heinz to launch a new line of refrigerated soups and side dishes made with no artificial flavors or dyes. Kate Murphy, director of strategic partnerships at the social marketing platform Crowdtap, weighed in on the strategy. “Celebrity endorsements can provide immense value to a product/brand when done right,” Murphy said. “If a celebrity aligns with a product, they bring a level of trust and familiarity to the table.” 2

Providing information: Informative promotion is more common in the early stages of the product life cycle. An informative promotion may explain what ingredients (for example, fiber) will do for a consumer’s health, describe why the product is better (for example, high-definition television versus regular television), inform the customer of a new low price, or explain where the item may be purchased.

People typically will not buy a product or support a not-for-profit organization until they know what it will do and how it may benefit them. Thus, an informative ad may stimulate interest in a product. Consumer watchdogs and social critics applaud the informative function of promotion because it helps consumers make more intelligent purchase decisions. StarKist , for instance, lets customers know that its tuna is caught in dolphin-safe nets.

Keeping loyal customers: Promotion is also used to keep people from switching brands. Slogans such as Campbell’s soups are “M’m! M’m! Good!” and “ Intel Inside” remind consumers about the brand. Marketers also remind users that the brand is better than the competition. For years, Pepsi has claimed it has the taste that consumers prefer. Southwest Airlines brags that customers’ bags fly free. Such advertising reminds customers about the quality of the product or service.

Firms can also help keep customers loyal by telling them when a product or service is improved. Domino’s recently aired candid advertisements about the quality of their product and completely revamped their delivery operations to improve their service. This included advertisements highlighting a Domino’s pizza being delivered by reindeer in Japan and by drone in New Zealand. According to University of Maryland marketing professor Roland Rust, “delivery” stands out in how Domino’s has broadly improved its quality, and “the customized delivery vehicles are a competitive advantage.” 3

Increasing the amount and frequency of use: Promotion is often used to get people to use more of a product and to use it more often. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association reminds Americans to “Eat More Beef.” The most popular promotion to increase the use of a product may be frequent-flyer or -user programs. The Marriott Rewards program awards points for each dollar spent at a Marriott property. At the Platinum level, members receive a guaranteed room, an upgrade to the property’s finest available accommodations, access to the concierge lounge, a free breakfast, free local phone calls, and a variety of other goodies. 4

Identifying target customers: Promotion helps find customers. One way to do this is to list a website as part of the promotion. For instance, promotions in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek regularly include web addresses for more information on computer systems, corporate jets, color copiers, and other types of business equipment to help target those who are truly interested. Fidelity Investments ads trumpet, “Solid investment opportunities are out there,” and then direct consumers to go to http://www.fidelity.com. A full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal for Sprint unlimited wireless service invites potential customers to visit http://www.sprint.com. These websites typically will ask for your e-mail address when you seek additional information.

Teaching the customer: For service products, it is often imperative to actually teach the potential client the reasons for certain parts of a service. In services, the service providers work with customers to perform the service. This is called “co-creation.” For example, an engineer will need to spend extensive time with team members from a client company and actually teach the team members what the design process will be, how the interaction of getting information for the design will work, and at what points each part of the service will be delivered so that ongoing changes can be made to the design. For services products, this is more involved than just providing information—it is actually teaching the client.

The Promotional Mix

The combination of traditional advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, social media, and e-commerce used to promote a product is called the promotional mix . Each firm creates a unique promotional mix for each product. But the goal is always to deliver the firm’s message efficiently and effectively to the target audience. These are the elements of the promotional mix:

• Traditional advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonal promotion by an identified sponsor that is delivered through traditional media channels.
• Personal selling: A face-to-face presentation to a prospective buyer.
• Sales promotion: Marketing activities (other than personal selling, traditional advertising, public relations, social media, and e-commerce) that stimulate consumer buying, including coupons and samples, displays, shows and exhibitions, demonstrations, and other types of selling efforts.
• Public relations: The linking of organizational goals with key aspects of the public interest and the development of programs designed to earn public understanding and acceptance. Public relations can include lobbying, publicity, special events, internal publications, and media such as a company’s internal television channel.
• Social media: The use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and various blogs to generate “buzz” about a product or company. The skills and knowledge needed to generate information as well as to defend the company against problems (such as incriminating videos “going viral”) are separate skills from those related to traditional advertising. Even promotional strategies such as paying celebrities to wear a specific line of clothing and posting these images on Twitter or Instagram (a form of advertising) requires different types of planning and expertise than traditional advertising.
• E-commerce: The use of a company’s website to generate sales through online ordering, information, interactive components such as games, and other elements of the website. Website development is mandatory is today’s business world. Understanding how to develop and utilize a website to generate sales is imperative for any marketer.

Ideally, marketing communications from each promotional-mix element (personal selling, traditional advertising, sales promotion, public relations, social media, and e-commerce) should be integrated. That is, the message reaching the consumer should be the same regardless of whether it comes from an advertisement, a salesperson in the field, a magazine article, a blog, a Facebook posting, or a coupon in a newspaper insert.

Integrated Marketing Communications

This disjointed approach to promotion has propelled many companies to adopt the concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) . IMC involves carefully coordinating all promotional activities—traditional advertising (including direct marketing), sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, social media and e-commerce, packaging, and other forms of promotion—to produce a consistent, unified message that is customer focused. Following the concept of IMC, marketing managers carefully work out the roles the various promotional elements will play in the marketing mix. Timing of promotional activities is coordinated, and the results of each campaign are carefully monitored to improve future use of the promotional mix tools. Typically, a company appoints a marketing communications director who has overall responsibility for integrating the company’s marketing communications.

Southwest Airlines relied on IMC to launch its “Transfarency” campaign. The campaign integrated and promoted the concept on its website, as well as through advertising and airport signage. The campaign has resonated with consumers because most competitors add extra fees for baggage and premium seats. One of the taglines Southwest uses is “Reward seats only on days ending with the letter ‘y.’” The integrated marketing campaign was created in collaboration with Southwest’s advertising agency, GSD&M, based in Dallas, Texas. 5

The sections that follow examine the elements of the promotional mix in more detail.

Concept Check

• What is the objective of a promotional campaign?
• What is the promotional mix?
• What are the features of an integrated marketing communications campaign?

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-business/pages/1-introduction

• Authors: Lawrence J. Gitman, Carl McDaniel, Amit Shah, Monique Reece, Linda Koffel, Bethann Talsma, James C. Hyatt
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Introduction to Business
• Publication date: Sep 19, 2018
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-business/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-business/pages/12-5-promotion-strategy

© Apr 5, 2023 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

Distributing and Promoting Products and Services

Promotion strategy.

• What is promotion, and what are the key elements of a promotional mix?

Promotion is an attempt by marketers to inform, persuade, or remind consumers and B2B users to influence their opinion or elicit a response. Most firms use some form of promotion. Because company goals vary widely, so do promotional strategies. The goal is to stimulate action from the people or organizations of a target market. In a profit-oriented firm, the desired action is for the consumer to buy the promoted item. Mrs. Smith’s, for instance, wants people to buy more frozen pies. Not-for-profit organizations seek a variety of actions with their promotions. They tell us not to litter, to buckle up, to join the military, or to attend the ballet. (These are examples of products that are ideas marketed to specific target markets.)

Promotional goals include creating awareness, getting people to try products, providing information, retaining loyal customers, increasing the use of products, and identifying potential customers, as well as teaching potential service clients what is needed to “co-create” the services provided. Any promotional campaign may seek to achieve one or more of these goals:

Creating awareness: All too often, firms go out of business because people don’t know they exist or what they do. Small restaurants often have this problem. Simply putting up a sign and opening the door is rarely enough. Promotion through ads on social media platforms and local radio or television, coupons in local papers, flyers, and so forth can create awareness of a new business or product.

Large companies often use catchy slogans to build brand awareness. For example, Dodge’s wildly successful ads where a guy in a truck yells over to another truck at a stoplight, “Hey, that thing got a Hemi?” has created a huge number of new customers for Dodge trucks. Hemi has become a brand within a brand. Now, Chrysler is extending the Hemi engine to the Jeep brand, hoping for the same success.

Getting consumers to try products: Promotion is almost always used to get people to try a new product or to get nonusers to try an existing product. Sometimes free samples are given away. Lever, for instance, mailed over two million free samples of its Lever 2000 soap to targeted households. Coupons and trial-size containers of products are also common tactics used to tempt people to try a product. Celebrities are also used to get people to try products. Oprah Winfrey, for example, recently partnered with Kraft Heinz to launch a new line of refrigerated soups and side dishes made with no artificial flavors or dyes. Kate Murphy, director of strategic partnerships at the social marketing platform Crowdtap, weighed in on the strategy. “Celebrity endorsements can provide immense value to a product/brand when done right,” Murphy said. “If a celebrity aligns with a product, they bring a level of trust and familiarity to the table.” [1]

Providing information: Informative promotion is more common in the early stages of the product life cycle. An informative promotion may explain what ingredients (for example, fiber) will do for a consumer’s health, describe why the product is better (for example, high-definition television versus regular television), inform the customer of a new low price, or explain where the item may be purchased.

People typically will not buy a product or support a not-for-profit organization until they know what it will do and how it may benefit them. Thus, an informative ad may stimulate interest in a product. Consumer watchdogs and social critics applaud the informative function of promotion because it helps consumers make more intelligent purchase decisions. StarKist , for instance, lets customers know that its tuna is caught in dolphin-safe nets.

Keeping loyal customers: Promotion is also used to keep people from switching brands. Slogans such as Campbell’s soups are “M’m! M’m! Good!” and “ Intel Inside” remind consumers about the brand. Marketers also remind users that the brand is better than the competition. For years, Pepsi has claimed it has the taste that consumers prefer. Southwest Airlines brags that customers’ bags fly free. Such advertising reminds customers about the quality of the product or service.

Firms can also help keep customers loyal by telling them when a product or service is improved. Domino’s recently aired candid advertisements about the quality of their product and completely revamped their delivery operations to improve their service. This included advertisements highlighting a Domino’s pizza being delivered by reindeer in Japan and by drone in New Zealand. According to University of Maryland marketing professor Roland Rust, “delivery” stands out in how Domino’s has broadly improved its quality, and “the customized delivery vehicles are a competitive advantage.” [2]

Increasing the amount and frequency of use: Promotion is often used to get people to use more of a product and to use it more often. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association reminds Americans to “Eat More Beef.” The most popular promotion to increase the use of a product may be frequent-flyer or -user programs. The Marriott Rewards program awards points for each dollar spent at a Marriott property. At the Platinum level, members receive a guaranteed room, an upgrade to the property’s finest available accommodations, access to the concierge lounge, a free breakfast, free local phone calls, and a variety of other goodies. [3]

Identifying target customers: Promotion helps find customers. One way to do this is to list a website as part of the promotion. For instance, promotions in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek regularly include web addresses for more information on computer systems, corporate jets, color copiers, and other types of business equipment to help target those who are truly interested. Fidelity Investments ads trumpet, “Solid investment opportunities are out there,” and then direct consumers to go to http://www.fidelity.com. A full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal for Sprint unlimited wireless service invites potential customers to visit http://www.sprint.com. These websites typically will ask for your e-mail address when you seek additional information.

Teaching the customer: For service products, it is often imperative to actually teach the potential client the reasons for certain parts of a service. In services, the service providers work with customers to perform the service. This is called “co-creation.” For example, an engineer will need to spend extensive time with team members from a client company and actually teach the team members what the design process will be, how the interaction of getting information for the design will work, and at what points each part of the service will be delivered so that ongoing changes can be made to the design. For services products, this is more involved than just providing information—it is actually teaching the client.

The Promotional Mix

The combination of traditional advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, social media, and e-commerce used to promote a product is called the promotional mix . Each firm creates a unique promotional mix for each product. But the goal is always to deliver the firm’s message efficiently and effectively to the target audience. These are the elements of the promotional mix:

• Traditional advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonal promotion by an identified sponsor that is delivered through traditional media channels.
• Personal selling: A face-to-face presentation to a prospective buyer.
• Sales promotion: Marketing activities (other than personal selling, traditional advertising, public relations, social media, and e-commerce) that stimulate consumer buying, including coupons and samples, displays, shows and exhibitions, demonstrations, and other types of selling efforts.
• Public relations: The linking of organizational goals with key aspects of the public interest and the development of programs designed to earn public understanding and acceptance. Public relations can include lobbying, publicity, special events, internal publications, and media such as a company’s internal television channel.
• Social media: The use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and various blogs to generate “buzz” about a product or company. The skills and knowledge needed to generate information as well as to defend the company against problems (such as incriminating videos “going viral”) are separate skills from those related to traditional advertising. Even promotional strategies such as paying celebrities to wear a specific line of clothing and posting these images on Twitter or Instagram (a form of advertising) requires different types of planning and expertise than traditional advertising.
• E-commerce: The use of a company’s website to generate sales through online ordering, information, interactive components such as games, and other elements of the website. Website development is mandatory is today’s business world. Understanding how to develop and utilize a website to generate sales is imperative for any marketer.

Ideally, marketing communications from each promotional-mix element (personal selling, traditional advertising, sales promotion, public relations, social media, and e-commerce) should be integrated. That is, the message reaching the consumer should be the same regardless of whether it comes from an advertisement, a salesperson in the field, a magazine article, a blog, a Facebook posting, or a coupon in a newspaper insert.

Integrated Marketing Communications

This disjointed approach to promotion has propelled many companies to adopt the concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) . IMC involves carefully coordinating all promotional activities—traditional advertising (including direct marketing), sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, social media and e-commerce, packaging, and other forms of promotion—to produce a consistent, unified message that is customer focused. Following the concept of IMC, marketing managers carefully work out the roles the various promotional elements will play in the marketing mix. Timing of promotional activities is coordinated, and the results of each campaign are carefully monitored to improve future use of the promotional mix tools. Typically, a company appoints a marketing communications director who has overall responsibility for integrating the company’s marketing communications.

Exhibit 12.7  When Weight Watchers signed up DJ Khaled to be one of its celebrity endorsers, many were surprised by the choice. Khaled will broadcast his quest to slim down across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat in a bid to attract more men to sign up for the program. Khaled is not the usual choice for a Weight Watchers spokesperson, but once you scratch below the surface, he’s actually a great brand fit. Authenticity and relevance are words bandied about like the gospel in influencer marketing, but they are the most important ingredients when it comes to working with any level of influencer. What challenges and payoffs are associated with integrated marketing communications? (Credit: megran.roberts/ Flickr/ Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))

Southwest Airlines relied on IMC to launch its “Transfarency” campaign. The campaign integrated and promoted the concept on its website, as well as through advertising and airport signage. The campaign has resonated with consumers because most competitors add extra fees for baggage and premium seats. One of the taglines Southwest uses is “Reward seats only on days ending with the letter ‘y.’” The integrated marketing campaign was created in collaboration with Southwest’s advertising agency, GSD&M, based in Dallas, Texas. [4]

The sections that follow examine the elements of the promotional mix in more detail.

concept check

• What is the objective of a promotional campaign?
• What is the promotional mix?
• What are the features of an integrated marketing communications campaign?

Summary of Learning Outcomes

Promotion aims to stimulate demand for a company’s goods or services. Promotional strategy is designed to inform, persuade, or remind target audiences about those products. The goals of promotion are to create awareness, get people to try products, provide information, keep loyal customers, increase use of a product, identify potential customers, and even teach clients about potential services.

The unique combination of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, social media, and e-commerce used to promote a product is called the promotional mix. Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal promotion by an identified sponsor. Personal selling consists of a face-to-face presentation in a conversation with a prospective purchaser. Sales promotion consists of marketing activities—other than personal selling, advertising, and public relations—that stimulate consumers to buy. These activities include coupons and samples, displays, shows and exhibitions, demonstrations, and other selling efforts. Public relations is the marketing function that links the policies of the organization with the public interest and develops programs designed to earn public understanding and acceptance. IMC is being used by more and more organizations. It is the careful coordination of all of the elements of the promotional mix to produce a consistent, unified message that is customer focused.

• Dan Orlando, “Kraft Heinz, Oprah Announce Retail Food Line,” Supermarket News, http://www.supermarketnews.com , August 11, 2017. ↵
• “Stunt Marketing or No, Dominos Has Refurbished Their Brand,” University of Maryland website, December 1, 2016, https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/news/stunt-marketing-or-no-dominos-has-refurbished-its-brand ↵
• Edmundas Jasinskas et al, “Impact of Hotel Service Quality on the Loyalty of Customers,” Economic Research, 29(1): 559–572, 2016. ↵
• “Low fares. Nothing to hide: Transfarency,” http://www.southwest.com , accessed March 21, 2018; S. Carey, “Southwest Airlines Launches ‘Transfarency’ Campaign,” The Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com , October 8, 2015. ↵
• Intro to Business. Authored by : Gitman, et. al. Provided by : OpenStax. Located at : http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected] . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]

Privacy Policy

• Search Search Please fill out this field.

What Is a Marketing Strategy?

• How It Works
• Marketing Strategies vs. Plans

How to Create a Marketing Strategy

The bottom line.

• Marketing Essentials

Marketing Strategy: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Create One

Investopedia / Daniel Fishel

A marketing strategy refers to a business’s overall game plan to facilitate the buying and selling of its products or services. A marketing strategy determines how to reach prospective consumers and turn them into customers. It contains the company’s value proposition , key brand messaging, data on target customer  demographics, and other high-level elements.

A thorough marketing strategy covers the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion.

Key Takeaways

• A marketing strategy is a business’s game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their products or services.
• Marketing strategies should revolve around a company’s value proposition.
• The ultimate goal of a marketing strategy is to achieve and communicate a sustainable competitive advantage over rival companies.

Understanding Marketing Strategies

A clear marketing strategy should revolve around the company’s value proposition, which communicates to consumers what the company stands for, how it operates, and why it deserves its business.

This provides marketing teams with a template that should inform their initiatives across all of the company’s products and services. For example, Walmart ( WMT ) is widely known as a discount retailer with “everyday low prices,” whose business operations and marketing efforts are rooted in that idea.

Marketing Strategies vs. Marketing Plans

The marketing strategy is outlined in the marketing plan —a document that details the specific types of marketing activities that a company conducts and contains timetables for rolling out various marketing initiatives.

Marketing strategies should ideally have longer life spans than individual marketing plans because they contain value propositions and other key elements of a company’s brand, which generally hold constant over the long haul. In other words, marketing strategies cover big-picture messaging, while marketing plans delineate the logistical details of specific campaigns.

For example, a marketing strategy might say that a company aims to increase authority in niche circles where their clients visit. The marketing plan puts that into action by commissioning thought leadership pieces on LinkedIn.

Benefits of a Marketing Strategy

The ultimate goal of a marketing strategy is to achieve and communicate a sustainable competitive advantage over rival companies by understanding the needs and wants of its consumers. Whether it’s a print ad design, mass customization , or a social media campaign, a marketing asset can be judged based on how effectively it communicates a company’s core value proposition.

Market research can help chart the efficacy of a given campaign and can help identify untapped audiences to achieve bottom-line goals and increase sales.

Creating a marketing strategy requires a few steps. Here are some of the steps you should consider when creating your marketing strategy.

• Identify your goals: While sales are the ultimate goal for every company, you should have more short-term goals such as establishing authority, increasing customer engagement, or generating leads. These smaller goals offer measurable benchmarks for the progress of your marketing plan. Think of strategy as the high-level ideology and planning as how you accomplish your goals.
• Know your clients: Every product or service has an ideal customer, and you should know who they are and where they hang out. If you sell power tools, you’ll choose marketing channels where general contractors may see your messaging. Establish who your client is and how your product will improve their lives.
• Create your message: Now that you know your goals and who you’re pitching to, it’s time to create your message. This is your opportunity to show your potential clients how your product or service will benefit them and why you’re the only company that can provide it.
• Define your budget: How you disperse your messaging may depend on how much you can afford. Will you be purchasing advertising? Hoping for a viral moment on social media organically? Sending out press releases to the media to try to gain coverage? Your budget will dictate what you can afford to do.
• Determine your channels: Even the best message needs the appropriate venue. Some companies may find more value in creating blog posts for their website. Others may find success with paid ads on social media channels. Find the most appropriate venue for your content.
• Measure your success: To target your marketing, you need to know whether it is reaching its audience. Determine your metrics and how you’ll judge the success of your marketing efforts.

Why Does a Company Need a Marketing Strategy?

A marketing strategy helps a company direct its advertising dollars to where it will have the most impact. Compared with the data from 2018, the correlation between organization and success in marketers jumped from being almost four times more likely to almost seven times more likely in 2022.

What Do the Four Ps Mean in a Marketing Strategy?

The four Ps are product, price, promotion, and place. These are the key factors that are involved in the marketing of a good or service . The four Ps can be used when planning a new business venture, evaluating an existing offer, or trying to optimize sales with a target audience. It also can be used to test a current marketing strategy on a new audience.

What Does a Marketing Strategy Look Like?

A marketing strategy will detail the advertising, outreach, and public relations campaigns to be carried out by a firm, including how the company will measure the effect of these initiatives.

They will typically follow the four Ps. The functions and components of a marketing plan include market research to support pricing decisions and new market entries, tailored messaging  that targets certain demographics and geographic areas, and platform selection for product and service promotion—digital, radio, Internet, trade magazines, and the mix of those platforms for each campaign, and metrics that measure the results of marketing efforts and their reporting timelines.

Is a Marketing Strategy the Same as a Marketing Plan?

The terms “marketing plan” and “marketing strategy” are often used interchangeably because a marketing plan is developed based on an overarching strategic framework. In some cases, the strategy and the plan may be incorporated into one document, particularly for smaller companies that may only run one or two major campaigns in a year. The plan outlines marketing activities on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis, while the marketing strategy outlines the overall value proposition.

Companies need to sell their products and services to generate revenue and put them on the path of being a successful business. To sell their products or services, they have to let consumers know of them. They must also convince consumers to buy them as well as convert consumers from competitors. Having a marketing strategy that outlines this process and more is a crucial step in converting consumers into customers.

Walmart Corporate. “ About .”

CoSchedule. “ Trend Report: Marketing Strategy 2022 .”

• How to Start a Business: A Comprehensive Guide and Essential Steps 1 of 25
• How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example 2 of 25
• Marketing Strategy: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Create One 3 of 25
• Marketing in Business: Strategies and Types Explained 4 of 25
• What Is a Marketing Plan? Types and How to Write One 5 of 25
• Business Development: Definition, Strategies, Steps & Skills 6 of 25
• Business Plan: What It Is, What's Included, and How to Write One 7 of 25
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC): Meaning, Types, Impact 8 of 25
• How to Write a Business Plan for a Loan 9 of 25
• Business Startup Costs: It’s in the Details 10 of 25
• Startup Capital Definition, Types, and Risks 11 of 25
• Bootstrapping Definition, Strategies, and Pros/Cons 12 of 25
• Crowdfunding: What It Is, How It Works, and Popular Websites 13 of 25
• Starting a Business with No Money: How to Begin 14 of 25
• A Comprehensive Guide to Establishing Business Credit 15 of 25
• Equity Financing: What It Is, How It Works, Pros and Cons 16 of 25
• Best Startup Business Loans 17 of 25
• Sole Proprietorship: What It Is, Pros and Cons, and Differences From an LLC 18 of 25
• Partnership: Definition, How It Works, Taxation, and Types 19 of 25
• What Is an LLC? Limited Liability Company Structure and Benefits Defined 20 of 25
• Corporation: What It Is and How to Form One 21 of 25
• Starting a Small Business: Your Complete How-to Guide 22 of 25
• Starting an Online Business: A Step-by-Step Guide 23 of 25
• How to Start Your Own Bookkeeping Business: Essential Tips 24 of 25
• How to Start a Successful Dropshipping Business: A Comprehensive Guide 25 of 25

• Terms of Service
• Editorial Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Your Privacy Choices

Small Business Trends

How to create a business plan: examples & free template.

This is the ultimate guide to creating a comprehensive and effective plan to start a business . In today’s dynamic business landscape, having a well-crafted business plan is an important first step to securing funding, attracting partners, and navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship.

This guide has been designed to help you create a winning plan that stands out in the ever-evolving marketplace. U sing real-world examples and a free downloadable template, it will walk you through each step of the process.

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or launching your very first startup, the guide will give you the insights, tools, and confidence you need to create a solid foundation for your business.

Table of Contents

How to Write a Business Plan

Embarking on the journey of creating a successful business requires a solid foundation, and a well-crafted business plan is the cornerstone. Here is the process of writing a comprehensive business plan and the main parts of a winning business plan . From setting objectives to conducting market research, this guide will have everything you need.

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary serves as the gateway to your business plan, offering a snapshot of your venture’s core aspects. This section should captivate and inform, succinctly summarizing the essence of your plan.

It’s crucial to include a clear mission statement, a brief description of your primary products or services, an overview of your target market, and key financial projections or achievements.

Think of it as an elevator pitch in written form: it should be compelling enough to engage potential investors or stakeholders and provide them with a clear understanding of what your business is about, its goals, and why it’s a promising investment.

Example: EcoTech is a technology company specializing in eco-friendly and sustainable products designed to reduce energy consumption and minimize waste. Our mission is to create innovative solutions that contribute to a cleaner, greener environment.

Our target market includes environmentally conscious consumers and businesses seeking to reduce their carbon footprint. We project a 200% increase in revenue within the first three years of operation.

Overview and Business Objectives

In the Overview and Business Objectives section, outline your business’s core goals and the strategic approaches you plan to use to achieve them. This section should set forth clear, specific objectives that are attainable and time-bound, providing a roadmap for your business’s growth and success.

It’s important to detail how these objectives align with your company’s overall mission and vision. Discuss the milestones you aim to achieve and the timeframe you’ve set for these accomplishments.

This part of the plan demonstrates to investors and stakeholders your vision for growth and the practical steps you’ll take to get there.

Example: EcoTech’s primary objective is to become a market leader in sustainable technology products within the next five years. Our key objectives include:

• Introducing three new products within the first two years of operation.
• Achieving annual revenue growth of 30%.
• Expanding our customer base to over 10,000 clients by the end of the third year.

Company Description

The Company Description section is your opportunity to delve into the details of your business. Provide a comprehensive overview that includes your company’s history, its mission statement, and its vision for the future.

Highlight your unique selling proposition (USP) – what makes your business stand out in the market. Explain the problems your company solves and how it benefits your customers.

Include information about the company’s founders, their expertise, and why they are suited to lead the business to success. This section should paint a vivid picture of your business, its values, and its place in the industry.

Example: EcoTech is committed to developing cutting-edge sustainable technology products that benefit both the environment and our customers. Our unique combination of innovative solutions and eco-friendly design sets us apart from the competition. We envision a future where technology and sustainability go hand in hand, leading to a greener planet.

Define Your Target Market

Defining Your Target Market is critical for tailoring your business strategy effectively. This section should describe your ideal customer base in detail, including demographic information (such as age, gender, income level, and location) and psychographic data (like interests, values, and lifestyle).

Elucidate on the specific needs or pain points of your target audience and how your product or service addresses these. This information will help you know your target market and develop targeted marketing strategies.

Example: Our target market comprises environmentally conscious consumers and businesses looking for innovative solutions to reduce their carbon footprint. Our ideal customers are those who prioritize sustainability and are willing to invest in eco-friendly products.

Market Analysis

The Market Analysis section requires thorough research and a keen understanding of the industry. It involves examining the current trends within your industry, understanding the needs and preferences of your customers, and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

This analysis will enable you to spot market opportunities and anticipate potential challenges. Include data and statistics to back up your claims, and use graphs or charts to illustrate market trends.

This section should demonstrate that you have a deep understanding of the market in which you operate and that your business is well-positioned to capitalize on its opportunities.

Example: The market for eco-friendly technology products has experienced significant growth in recent years, with an estimated annual growth rate of 10%. As consumers become increasingly aware of environmental issues, the demand for sustainable solutions continues to rise.

Our research indicates a gap in the market for high-quality, innovative eco-friendly technology products that cater to both individual and business clients.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis in your business plan offers a comprehensive examination of your company’s internal and external factors. By assessing Strengths, you showcase what your business does best and where your capabilities lie.

Weaknesses involve an honest introspection of areas where your business may be lacking or could improve. Opportunities can be external factors that your business could capitalize on, such as market gaps or emerging trends.

Threats include external challenges your business may face, like competition or market changes. This analysis is crucial for strategic planning, as it helps in recognizing and leveraging your strengths, addressing weaknesses, seizing opportunities, and preparing for potential threats.

Including a SWOT analysis demonstrates to stakeholders that you have a balanced and realistic understanding of your business in its operational context.

• Innovative and eco-friendly product offerings.
• Strong commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility.
• Skilled and experienced team with expertise in technology and sustainability.

Weaknesses:

• Limited brand recognition compared to established competitors.
• Reliance on third-party manufacturers for product development.

Opportunities:

• Growing consumer interest in sustainable products.
• Partnerships with environmentally-focused organizations and influencers.
• Expansion into international markets.
• Intense competition from established technology companies.
• Regulatory changes could impact the sustainable technology market.

Competitive Analysis

In this section, you’ll analyze your competitors in-depth, examining their products, services, market positioning, and pricing strategies. Understanding your competition allows you to identify gaps in the market and tailor your offerings to outperform them.

By conducting a thorough competitive analysis, you can gain insights into your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, enabling you to develop strategies to differentiate your business and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Example: Key competitors include:

GreenTech: A well-known brand offering eco-friendly technology products, but with a narrower focus on energy-saving devices.

EarthSolutions: A direct competitor specializing in sustainable technology, but with a limited product range and higher prices.

By offering a diverse product portfolio, competitive pricing, and continuous innovation, we believe we can capture a significant share of the growing sustainable technology market.

Organization and Management Team

Provide an overview of your company’s organizational structure, including key roles and responsibilities. Introduce your management team, highlighting their expertise and experience to demonstrate that your team is capable of executing the business plan successfully.

Showcasing your team’s background, skills, and accomplishments instills confidence in investors and other stakeholders, proving that your business has the leadership and talent necessary to achieve its objectives and manage growth effectively.

Example: EcoTech’s organizational structure comprises the following key roles: CEO, CTO, CFO, Sales Director, Marketing Director, and R&D Manager. Our management team has extensive experience in technology, sustainability, and business development, ensuring that we are well-equipped to execute our business plan successfully.

Products and Services Offered

Describe the products or services your business offers, focusing on their unique features and benefits. Explain how your offerings solve customer pain points and why they will choose your products or services over the competition.

This section should emphasize the value you provide to customers, demonstrating that your business has a deep understanding of customer needs and is well-positioned to deliver innovative solutions that address those needs and set your company apart from competitors.

Example: EcoTech offers a range of eco-friendly technology products, including energy-efficient lighting solutions, solar chargers, and smart home devices that optimize energy usage. Our products are designed to help customers reduce energy consumption, minimize waste, and contribute to a cleaner environment.

Marketing and Sales Strategy

In this section, articulate your comprehensive strategy for reaching your target market and driving sales. Detail the specific marketing channels you plan to use, such as social media, email marketing, SEO, or traditional advertising.

Describe the nature of your advertising campaigns and promotional activities, explaining how they will capture the attention of your target audience and convey the value of your products or services. Outline your sales strategy, including your sales process, team structure, and sales targets.

Discuss how these marketing and sales efforts will work together to attract and retain customers, generate leads, and ultimately contribute to achieving your business’s revenue goals.

This section is critical to convey to investors and stakeholders that you have a well-thought-out approach to market your business effectively and drive sales growth.

Example: Our marketing strategy includes digital advertising, content marketing, social media promotion, and influencer partnerships. We will also attend trade shows and conferences to showcase our products and connect with potential clients. Our sales strategy involves both direct sales and partnerships with retail stores, as well as online sales through our website and e-commerce platforms.

Logistics and Operations Plan

The Logistics and Operations Plan is a critical component that outlines the inner workings of your business. It encompasses the management of your supply chain, detailing how you acquire raw materials and manage vendor relationships.

Inventory control is another crucial aspect, where you explain strategies for inventory management to ensure efficiency and reduce wastage. The section should also describe your production processes, emphasizing scalability and adaptability to meet changing market demands.

Quality control measures are essential to maintain product standards and customer satisfaction. This plan assures investors and stakeholders of your operational competency and readiness to meet business demands.

Highlighting your commitment to operational efficiency and customer satisfaction underlines your business’s capability to maintain smooth, effective operations even as it scales.

Example: EcoTech partners with reliable third-party manufacturers to produce our eco-friendly technology products. Our operations involve maintaining strong relationships with suppliers, ensuring quality control, and managing inventory.

We also prioritize efficient distribution through various channels, including online platforms and retail partners, to deliver products to our customers in a timely manner.

Financial Projections Plan

In the Financial Projections Plan, lay out a clear and realistic financial future for your business. This should include detailed projections for revenue, costs, and profitability over the next three to five years.

Ground these projections in solid assumptions based on your market analysis, industry benchmarks, and realistic growth scenarios. Break down revenue streams and include an analysis of the cost of goods sold, operating expenses, and potential investments.

This section should also discuss your break-even analysis, cash flow projections, and any assumptions about external funding requirements.

By presenting a thorough and data-backed financial forecast, you instill confidence in potential investors and lenders, showcasing your business’s potential for profitability and financial stability.

This forward-looking financial plan is crucial for demonstrating that you have a firm grasp of the financial nuances of your business and are prepared to manage its financial health effectively.

Example: Over the next three years, we expect to see significant growth in revenue, driven by new product launches and market expansion. Our financial projections include:

• Year 1: $1.5 million in revenue, with a net profit of $200,000.
• Year 2: $3 million in revenue, with a net profit of $500,000.
• Year 3: $4.5 million in revenue, with a net profit of $1 million.

These projections are based on realistic market analysis, growth rates, and product pricing.

Income Statement

The income statement , also known as the profit and loss statement, provides a summary of your company’s revenues and expenses over a specified period. It helps you track your business’s financial performance and identify trends, ensuring you stay on track to achieve your financial goals.

Regularly reviewing and analyzing your income statement allows you to monitor the health of your business, evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies, and make data-driven decisions to optimize profitability and growth.

Example: The income statement for EcoTech’s first year of operation is as follows:

• Revenue: $1,500,000
• Cost of Goods Sold: $800,000
• Gross Profit: $700,000
• Operating Expenses: $450,000
• Net Income: $250,000

This statement highlights our company’s profitability and overall financial health during the first year of operation.

Cash Flow Statement

A cash flow statement is a crucial part of a financial business plan that shows the inflows and outflows of cash within your business. It helps you monitor your company’s liquidity, ensuring you have enough cash on hand to cover operating expenses, pay debts, and invest in growth opportunities.

By including a cash flow statement in your business plan, you demonstrate your ability to manage your company’s finances effectively.

Example:  The cash flow statement for EcoTech’s first year of operation is as follows:

Operating Activities:

• Depreciation: $10,000
• Changes in Working Capital: -$50,000
• Net Cash from Operating Activities: $210,000

Investing Activities:

•  Capital Expenditures: -$100,000
• Net Cash from Investing Activities: -$100,000

Financing Activities:

• Proceeds from Loans: $150,000
• Loan Repayments: -$50,000
• Net Cash from Financing Activities: $100,000
• Net Increase in Cash: $210,000

This statement demonstrates EcoTech’s ability to generate positive cash flow from operations, maintain sufficient liquidity, and invest in growth opportunities.

Tips on Writing a Business Plan

1. Be clear and concise: Keep your language simple and straightforward. Avoid jargon and overly technical terms. A clear and concise business plan is easier for investors and stakeholders to understand and demonstrates your ability to communicate effectively.

2. Conduct thorough research: Before writing your business plan, gather as much information as possible about your industry, competitors, and target market. Use reliable sources and industry reports to inform your analysis and make data-driven decisions.

3. Set realistic goals: Your business plan should outline achievable objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Setting realistic goals demonstrates your understanding of the market and increases the likelihood of success.

4. Focus on your unique selling proposition (USP): Clearly articulate what sets your business apart from the competition. Emphasize your USP throughout your business plan to showcase your company’s value and potential for success.

5. Be flexible and adaptable: A business plan is a living document that should evolve as your business grows and changes. Be prepared to update and revise your plan as you gather new information and learn from your experiences.

6. Use visuals to enhance understanding: Include charts, graphs, and other visuals to help convey complex data and ideas. Visuals can make your business plan more engaging and easier to digest, especially for those who prefer visual learning.

7. Seek feedback from trusted sources: Share your business plan with mentors, industry experts, or colleagues and ask for their feedback. Their insights can help you identify areas for improvement and strengthen your plan before presenting it to potential investors or partners.

FREE Business Plan Template

To help you get started on your business plan, we have created a template that includes all the essential components discussed in the “How to Write a Business Plan” section. This easy-to-use template will guide you through each step of the process, ensuring you don’t miss any critical details.

The template is divided into the following sections:

• Mission statement
• Business Overview
• Key products or services
• Target market
• Financial highlights
• Company goals
• Strategies to achieve goals
• Measurable, time-bound objectives
• Company History
• Mission and vision
• Unique selling proposition
• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Pain points
• Industry trends
• Customer needs
• Competitor strengths and weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Competitor products and services
• Market positioning
• Pricing strategies
• Organizational structure
• Key roles and responsibilities
• Management team backgrounds
• Product or service features
• Competitive advantages
• Marketing channels
• Advertising campaigns
• Promotional activities
• Sales strategies
• Supply chain management
• Inventory control
• Production processes
• Quality control measures
• Projected revenue
• Assumptions
• Cash inflows
• Cash outflows
• Net cash flow

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a strategic document that outlines an organization’s goals, objectives, and the steps required to achieve them. It serves as a roadmap as you start a business , guiding the company’s direction and growth while identifying potential obstacles and opportunities.

Typically, a business plan covers areas such as market analysis, financial projections, marketing strategies, and organizational structure. It not only helps in securing funding from investors and lenders but also provides clarity and focus to the management team.

A well-crafted business plan is a very important part of your business startup checklist because it fosters informed decision-making and long-term success.

Why You Should Write a Business Plan

Understanding the importance of a business plan in today’s competitive environment is crucial for entrepreneurs and business owners. Here are five compelling reasons to write a business plan:

• Attract Investors and Secure Funding : A well-written business plan demonstrates your venture’s potential and profitability, making it easier to attract investors and secure the necessary funding for growth and development. It provides a detailed overview of your business model, target market, financial projections, and growth strategies, instilling confidence in potential investors and lenders that your company is a worthy investment.
• Clarify Business Objectives and Strategies : Crafting a business plan forces you to think critically about your goals and the strategies you’ll employ to achieve them, providing a clear roadmap for success. This process helps you refine your vision and prioritize the most critical objectives, ensuring that your efforts are focused on achieving the desired results.
• Identify Potential Risks and Opportunities : Analyzing the market, competition, and industry trends within your business plan helps identify potential risks and uncover untapped opportunities for growth and expansion. This insight enables you to develop proactive strategies to mitigate risks and capitalize on opportunities, positioning your business for long-term success.
• Improve Decision-Making : A business plan serves as a reference point so you can make informed decisions that align with your company’s overall objectives and long-term vision. By consistently referring to your plan and adjusting it as needed, you can ensure that your business remains on track and adapts to changes in the market, industry, or internal operations.
• Foster Team Alignment and Communication : A shared business plan helps ensure that all team members are on the same page, promoting clear communication, collaboration, and a unified approach to achieving the company’s goals. By involving your team in the planning process and regularly reviewing the plan together, you can foster a sense of ownership, commitment, and accountability that drives success.

What are the Different Types of Business Plans?

In today’s fast-paced business world, having a well-structured roadmap is more important than ever. A traditional business plan provides a comprehensive overview of your company’s goals and strategies, helping you make informed decisions and achieve long-term success. There are various types of business plans, each designed to suit different needs and purposes. Let’s explore the main types:

• Startup Business Plan: Tailored for new ventures, a startup business plan outlines the company’s mission, objectives, target market, competition, marketing strategies, and financial projections. It helps entrepreneurs clarify their vision, secure funding from investors, and create a roadmap for their business’s future. Additionally, this plan identifies potential challenges and opportunities, which are crucial for making informed decisions and adapting to changing market conditions.
• Internal Business Plan: This type of plan is intended for internal use, focusing on strategies, milestones, deadlines, and resource allocation. It serves as a management tool for guiding the company’s growth, evaluating its progress, and ensuring that all departments are aligned with the overall vision. The internal business plan also helps identify areas of improvement, fosters collaboration among team members, and provides a reference point for measuring performance.
• Strategic Business Plan: A strategic business plan outlines long-term goals and the steps to achieve them, providing a clear roadmap for the company’s direction. It typically includes a SWOT analysis, market research, and competitive analysis. This plan allows businesses to align their resources with their objectives, anticipate changes in the market, and develop contingency plans. By focusing on the big picture, a strategic business plan fosters long-term success and stability.
• Feasibility Business Plan: This plan is designed to assess the viability of a business idea, examining factors such as market demand, competition, and financial projections. It is often used to decide whether or not to pursue a particular venture. By conducting a thorough feasibility analysis, entrepreneurs can avoid investing time and resources into an unviable business concept. This plan also helps refine the business idea, identify potential obstacles, and determine the necessary resources for success.
• Growth Business Plan: Also known as an expansion plan, a growth business plan focuses on strategies for scaling up an existing business. It includes market analysis, new product or service offerings, and financial projections to support expansion plans. This type of plan is essential for businesses looking to enter new markets, increase their customer base, or launch new products or services. By outlining clear growth strategies, the plan helps ensure that expansion efforts are well-coordinated and sustainable.
• Operational Business Plan: This type of plan outlines the company’s day-to-day operations, detailing the processes, procedures, and organizational structure. It is an essential tool for managing resources, streamlining workflows, and ensuring smooth operations. The operational business plan also helps identify inefficiencies, implement best practices, and establish a strong foundation for future growth. By providing a clear understanding of daily operations, this plan enables businesses to optimize their resources and enhance productivity.
• Lean Business Plan: A lean business plan is a simplified, agile version of a traditional plan, focusing on key elements such as value proposition, customer segments, revenue streams, and cost structure. It is perfect for startups looking for a flexible, adaptable planning approach. The lean business plan allows for rapid iteration and continuous improvement, enabling businesses to pivot and adapt to changing market conditions. This streamlined approach is particularly beneficial for businesses in fast-paced or uncertain industries.
• One-Page Business Plan: As the name suggests, a one-page business plan is a concise summary of your company’s key objectives, strategies, and milestones. It serves as a quick reference guide and is ideal for pitching to potential investors or partners. This plan helps keep teams focused on essential goals and priorities, fosters clear communication, and provides a snapshot of the company’s progress. While not as comprehensive as other plans, a one-page business plan is an effective tool for maintaining clarity and direction.
• Nonprofit Business Plan: Specifically designed for nonprofit organizations, this plan outlines the mission, goals, target audience, fundraising strategies, and budget allocation. It helps secure grants and donations while ensuring the organization stays on track with its objectives. The nonprofit business plan also helps attract volunteers, board members, and community support. By demonstrating the organization’s impact and plans for the future, this plan is essential for maintaining transparency, accountability, and long-term sustainability within the nonprofit sector.
• Franchise Business Plan: For entrepreneurs seeking to open a franchise, this type of plan focuses on the franchisor’s requirements, as well as the franchisee’s goals, strategies, and financial projections. It is crucial for securing a franchise agreement and ensuring the business’s success within the franchise system. This plan outlines the franchisee’s commitment to brand standards, marketing efforts, and operational procedures, while also addressing local market conditions and opportunities. By creating a solid franchise business plan, entrepreneurs can demonstrate their ability to effectively manage and grow their franchise, increasing the likelihood of a successful partnership with the franchisor.

Using Business Plan Software

Creating a comprehensive business plan can be intimidating, but business plan software can streamline the process and help you produce a professional document. These tools offer a number of benefits, including guided step-by-step instructions, financial projections, and industry-specific templates. Here are the top 5 business plan software options available to help you craft a great business plan.

1. LivePlan

LivePlan is a popular choice for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features. It offers over 500 sample plans, financial forecasting tools, and the ability to track your progress against key performance indicators. With LivePlan, you can create visually appealing, professional business plans that will impress investors and stakeholders.

2. Upmetrics

Upmetrics provides a simple and intuitive platform for creating a well-structured business plan. It features customizable templates, financial forecasting tools, and collaboration capabilities, allowing you to work with team members and advisors. Upmetrics also offers a library of resources to guide you through the business planning process.

Bizplan is designed to simplify the business planning process with a drag-and-drop builder and modular sections. It offers financial forecasting tools, progress tracking, and a visually appealing interface. With Bizplan, you can create a business plan that is both easy to understand and visually engaging.

Enloop is a robust business plan software that automatically generates a tailored plan based on your inputs. It provides industry-specific templates, financial forecasting, and a unique performance score that updates as you make changes to your plan. Enloop also offers a free version, making it accessible for businesses on a budget.

5. Tarkenton GoSmallBiz

Developed by NFL Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton, GoSmallBiz is tailored for small businesses and startups. It features a guided business plan builder, customizable templates, and financial projection tools. GoSmallBiz also offers additional resources, such as CRM tools and legal document templates, to support your business beyond the planning stage.

Business Plan FAQs

What is a good business plan.

A good business plan is a well-researched, clear, and concise document that outlines a company’s goals, strategies, target market, competitive advantages, and financial projections. It should be adaptable to change and provide a roadmap for achieving success.

What are the 3 main purposes of a business plan?

The three main purposes of a business plan are to guide the company’s strategy, attract investment, and evaluate performance against objectives. Here’s a closer look at each of these:

• It outlines the company’s purpose and core values to ensure that all activities align with its mission and vision.
• It provides an in-depth analysis of the market, including trends, customer needs, and competition, helping the company tailor its products and services to meet market demands.
• It defines the company’s marketing and sales strategies, guiding how the company will attract and retain customers.
• It describes the company’s organizational structure and management team, outlining roles and responsibilities to ensure effective operation and leadership.
• It sets measurable, time-bound objectives, allowing the company to plan its activities effectively and make strategic decisions to achieve these goals.
• It provides a comprehensive overview of the company and its business model, demonstrating its uniqueness and potential for success.
• It presents the company’s financial projections, showing its potential for profitability and return on investment.
• It demonstrates the company’s understanding of the market, including its target customers and competition, convincing investors that the company is capable of gaining a significant market share.
• It showcases the management team’s expertise and experience, instilling confidence in investors that the team is capable of executing the business plan successfully.
• It establishes clear, measurable objectives that serve as performance benchmarks.
• It provides a basis for regular performance reviews, allowing the company to monitor its progress and identify areas for improvement.
• It enables the company to assess the effectiveness of its strategies and make adjustments as needed to achieve its objectives.
• It helps the company identify potential risks and challenges, enabling it to develop contingency plans and manage risks effectively.
• It provides a mechanism for evaluating the company’s financial performance, including revenue, expenses, profitability, and cash flow.

Can I write a business plan by myself?

Yes, you can write a business plan by yourself, but it can be helpful to consult with mentors, colleagues, or industry experts to gather feedback and insights. There are also many creative business plan templates and business plan examples available online, including those above.

We also have examples for specific industries, including a using food truck business plan , salon business plan , farm business plan , daycare business plan , and restaurant business plan .

Is it possible to create a one-page business plan?

Yes, a one-page business plan is a condensed version that highlights the most essential elements, including the company’s mission, target market, unique selling proposition, and financial goals.

How long should a business plan be?

A typical business plan ranges from 20 to 50 pages, but the length may vary depending on the complexity and needs of the business.

What is a business plan outline?

A business plan outline is a structured framework that organizes the content of a business plan into sections, such as the executive summary, company description, market analysis, and financial projections.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

The five most common business plan mistakes include inadequate research, unrealistic financial projections, lack of focus on the unique selling proposition, poor organization and structure, and failure to update the plan as circumstances change.

What questions should be asked in a business plan?

A business plan should address questions such as: What problem does the business solve? Who is the specific target market ? What is the unique selling proposition? What are the company’s objectives? How will it achieve those objectives?

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan focuses on the overall vision, goals, and tactics of a company, while a strategic plan outlines the specific strategies, action steps, and performance measures necessary to achieve the company’s objectives.

How is business planning for a nonprofit different?

Nonprofit business planning focuses on the organization’s mission, social impact, and resource management, rather than profit generation. The financial section typically includes funding sources, expenses, and projected budgets for programs and operations.

Image: Envato Elements

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

© Copyright 2003 - 2024, Small Business Trends LLC. All rights reserved. "Small Business Trends" is a registered trademark.

8 Business Plan Templates You Can Get for Free

8 min. read

Updated April 10, 2024

A business plan template can be an excellent tool to simplify the creation of your business plan. 

The pre-set structure helps you organize ideas, covers all critical business information, and saves you time and effort on formatting.

The only issue? There are SO many free business plan templates out there. 

So, which ones are actually worth using? 

To help remove the guesswork, I’ve rounded up some of the best business plan templates you can access right now. 

These are listed in no particular order, and each has its benefits and drawbacks.

What to look for in a business plan template

Not all business plan templates are created equal. As you weigh your options and decide which template(s) you’ll use, be sure to review them with the following criteria in mind:

• Easy to edit: A template should save you time. That won’t be the case if you have to fuss around figuring out how to edit the document, or even worse, it doesn’t allow you to edit at all.
• Contains the right sections: A good template should cover all essential sections of a business plan , including the executive summary, product/service description, market/competitive analysis, marketing and sales plan, operations, milestones, and financial projections. 
• Provides guidance: You should be able to trust that the information in a template is accurate. That means the organization or person who created the template is highly credible, known for producing useful resources, and ideally has some entrepreneurial experience.
• Software compatibility: Lastly, you want any template to be compatible with the software platforms you use. More than likely, this means it’s available in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or PDF format at a minimum. 

1. Bplans — A plan with expert guidance

Since you’re already on Bplans, I have to first mention the templates that we have available. 

Our traditional and one-page templates were created by entrepreneurs and business owners with over 80 years of collective planning experience. We revisit and update them annually to ensure they are approachable, thorough, and aligned with our team’s evolving best practices.  

The templates, available in Word, PDF, or Google Doc formats, include in-depth guidance on what to include in each section, expert tips, and links to additional resources. 

Plus, we have over 550 real-world sample business plans you can use for guidance when filling out your template.

Download: Traditional lender-ready business plan template or a simple one-page plan template .

Brought to you by

Create a professional business plan

Using ai and step-by-step instructions.

Secure funding

Validate ideas

Build a strategy

2. SBA — Introduction to business plans

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) offers two different business plan templates along with a short planning guide. 

While not incredibly in-depth, it’s enough to help you understand how traditional and lean plans are structured and what information needs to be covered. The templates themselves are more like examples, providing you with a finished product to reference as you write your plan.

The key benefit of using these templates is that they were created by the SBA. While they may provide less guidance, you can be assured that the information and structure meet their expectations.

Explore: The SBA’s planning guide and free templates

3. SCORE — Planning workbook

SCORE’s template is more like a workbook. It includes exercises after each section to help you get your ideas down and turn them into a structured plan.

The market research worksheets are especially useful. They provide a clear framework for identifying your target market and analyzing competitors from multiple angles. Plus, they give you an easy way to document all the information you’re collecting.

You will likely have to remove the exercises in this template to make it investor-ready. But it can be worth it if you’re struggling to get past a blank page and want a more interactive planning method.

Download: SCORE’s business plan template

4. PandaDoc — A template with fillable forms

PandaDoc’s library offers a variety of industry-specific business plan templates that feature a modern design flair and concise instructions. 

These templates are designed for sharing. They include fillable fields and sections for non-disclosure agreements, which may be necessary when sending a plan to investors.  

But the real benefit is their compatibility with PandaDoc’s platform. Yes, they are free, but if you’re a PandaDoc subscriber, you’ll have far more customization options. 

Out of all their templates, the standard business plan template is the most in-depth. The rest, while still useful, go a bit lighter on guidance in favor of tailoring the plan to a specific industry.

Explore: PandaDoc’s business plan template library  

5. Canva — Pitch with your plan

Canva is a great option for building a visually stunning business plan that can be used as a pitch tool. It offers a diverse array of templates built by their in-house team and the larger creative community, meaning the number of options constantly grows.

You will need to verify that the information in the template you choose matches the standard structure of a traditional business plan. 

You should do this with any template, but it’s especially important with any tool that accepts community submissions. While they are likely reviewed and approved, there may still be errors.

Remember, you can only edit these templates within Canva. Luckily, you only need a free subscription, and you may just miss out on some of the visual assets being used. 

To get the most value, it may be best to create a more traditional planning document and transfer that information into Canva. 

Explore: Canva’s business plan gallery

6. ClickUp — The collaborative template

Out of all the project management tools that offer free business plan templates, ClickUp’s is the most approachable.

Rather than throwing you into all the features and expecting you to figure it out—ClickUp provides a thorough startup guide with resource links, images, and videos explaining how to write a plan using the tool. 

There’s also a completed sample plan (structured like an expanded one-page plan) for you to reference and see how the more traditional document can connect to the product management features. You can set goals, target dates, leave comments, and even assign tasks to someone else on your team. 

These features are limited to the ClickUp platform and will not be useful for everyone. They will likely get in the way of writing a plan you can easily share with lenders or investors. 

But this is a great option if you’re looking for a template that makes internal collaboration more fluid and keeps all your information in one place.

Sign Up: Get a free trial of ClickUp and explore their template library

7. Smartsheet — A wide variety of templates

I’m including Smartsheet’s library of templates on this list because of the sheer number of options they provide. 

They have a simple business plan template, a one-page plan, a fill-in-the-blank template, a plan outline, a plan grading rubric, and even an Excel-built project plan. All are perfectly usable and vary in visual style, depth of instructions, and the available format.

Honestly, the only drawback (which is also the core benefit) is that the amount of templates can be overwhelming. If you’re already uncertain which plan option is right for you, the lengthy list they provide may not provide much clarity.

At the same time, it can be a great resource if you want a one-stop shop to view multiple plan types.

Explore: Smartsheet’s business plan template library  

8. ReferralRock affiliate marketing business plan

I’m adding ReferralRock’s template to this list due to its specificity. 

It’s not your standard business plan template. The plan is tailored with specific sections and guidance around launching an affiliate marketing business. 

Most of the template is dedicated to defining how to choose affiliates, set commissions, create legal agreements, and track performance.

So, if you plan on starting an affiliate marketing business or program, this template will provide more specific guidance. Just know that you will likely need to reference additional resources when writing the non-industry sections of your plan.

Download: ReferralRock affiliate marketing business plan template

Does it matter what business plan template you use?

The short answer is no. As long as the structure is correct, it saves you time, and it helps you write your business plan , then any template will work. 

What it ultimately comes down to, is what sort of value you hope to get from the template. 

• Do you need more guidance? 
• A simple way to structure your plan? 
• An option that works with a specific tool?
• A way to make your plan more visually interesting?

Hopefully, this list has helped you hone in on an option that meets one (or several) of these needs. Still, it may be worth downloading a few of these templates to determine the right fit. 

And really, what matters most is that you spend time writing a business plan . It will help you avoid early mistakes, determine if you have a viable business, and fully consider what it will take to get up and running. 

If you need additional guidance, check out our library of planning resources . We cover everything from plan formats , to how to write a business plan, and even how to use it as a management tool . 

If you don’t want to waste time researching other templates, you can download our one-page or traditional business plan template and jump right into the planning process.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Kody Wirth is a content writer and SEO specialist for Palo Alto Software—the creator's of Bplans and LivePlan. He has 3+ years experience covering small business topics and runs a part-time content writing service in his spare time.

Table of Contents

• Qualities of a good template
• ReferralRock
• Does the template matter?

Related Articles

10 Min. Read

When Should You Write a Business Plan?

Use This Simple Business Plan Outline to Organize Your Plan

3 Min. Read

How Long Should a Business Plan Be?

14 Reasons Why You Need a Business Plan

The Bplans Newsletter

The Bplans Weekly

Subscribe now for weekly advice and free downloadable resources to help start and grow your business.

We care about your privacy. See our privacy policy .

The quickest way to turn a business idea into a business plan

Fill-in-the-blanks and automatic financials make it easy.

No thanks, I prefer writing 40-page documents.

Discover the world’s #1 plan building software

• 03 9568 5444
• Book An Appointment
• Types of promotional strategies for your small business
• Small Business

What strategies can you use to promote your business?

Small companies in today's modern economy have access to a wide range of alternatives when it comes to promoting the products and services they offer to customers.

It is essential to have a solid understanding of who your consumer is in order to direct your marketing strategy in their direction effectively. This is true regardless of the goods or services that are provided by or offered by your organisation.

What are the 5 promotion strategies?

• Get the most out of social media. ...
• Generate conversation with swag! ...
• Offer incentives with targeted landing pages. ...
• Appeal locally and create an event. ...
• Boost your brand with education.

What are the 4 types of promotional strategies?

What are some promotional strategies.

• Contests as a Promotional Strategy. Contests are a frequently used promotional strategy. ...
• Social Media Promotion. ...
• Mail Order Marketing. ...
• Product Giveaways and Samples. ...
• Point-of-Sale Promotion and End-Cap Marketing. ...
• Customer Referral Incentive Program. ...
• Causes and Charity. ...
• Branded Promotional Gifts.

Got questions? We have answers

When establishing a promotion for your company, it is imperative that you have a firm understanding of what sets your product or service apart from those offered by your rivals. First, find out where you stand in the atmosphere of competition, and then home in on the components of what you provide that differentiate you from the rest of the pack. This can help you determine how you will market your organisation moving ahead and is going to be of great assistance.

WHAT IS A PROMOTION STRATEGY?

A promotion strategy is a plan that may be put into action to change people’s ideas about your company, bring in more prospective customers, and enhance the amount of participation that consumers have with the business. It determines who you should target as your audience, describes where and when the promotion plan should be carried out and offers a graphical picture of how to carry out your marketing strategy and communication.

Even though they are pouring more money into their advertising on an annual basis, several marketers are reporting that their efforts are producing diminishing returns. When you advertise your brand, you need to ensure that the messages you send get through to the customers you are hoping to attract because there are an excessive number of alternatives and marketing voices. This is because there are an excessive number of alternatives and marketing voices .

In addition, it is quite challenging to turn individuals into customers if your marketing does not resonate with them on an emotional level, inspire interest in what you have to give, and pique their desire to buy what you have to sell. Another reason for this is that without resonant marketing voices, it is impossible to turn individuals into paying consumers.

ROLE OF PROMOTIONS

The promotion of a company is addressed by this “P” of the marketing mix, which is one of the four components that make up the marketing mix. It is a component of  marketing communication  that reaches your target market to improve brand awareness and drive engagement with new and existing consumers. In other words, it helps you make more sales.

Promotion is done with the goals of gaining the attention of your target audience, raising the demand for your goods and services, generating interest in those goods and services, and convincing them to buy from you.

The following is a list of the four functions of promotion that are considered to be the most important:

Build awareness

Raising the level of awareness among your target audience regarding the  products and services offered by your firm.  You will first need to decide on the intended recipients of your promotional and marketing communications, also known as your target audience, and only then will you be able to choose your methods of outreach.

Foster interests 

Obtaining their participation and interest in your firm is a priority. One requires a content marketing plan that has been properly crafted to provide enough material for lead nurturing and to demonstrate uniqueness to separate oneself from one’s competitors.

Generate demand

boosting the appeal of your company’s goods and services to potential customers. If you share some of your product’s beautiful features and advantages with your prospect, you may build an emotional connection with them.

Induce prospects to take action

Establishing a call-to-action  makes it possible for the target audience to connect with the material you’ve provided and find the subsequent actions in a straightforward manner. anywhere you have the opportunity to position yourself to produce conversions, including but not limited to your website, digital advertising, and social media, among other possible locations.

These are some examples of marketing models that follow the AIDA format, as seen from the above examples. This suggests that marketing and promotions may play a part in the customer’s decision-making process at any and all stages of the purchase process.

In addition to this, it will aid you in creating a stronger relationship with your clients and nurture repeat business, which will result in those consumers staying with you for a longer period.

TYPES OF PROMOTION

There are a number of various promotional marketing techniques that you could use to attract your prospects and clients, as well as those who are interested in the AIDA process. Of course, you could also use these promotional marketing methods to attract those who are interested in the AIDA process . From tried-and-true marketing methods like face-to-face sales to forward-thinking marketing techniques like digital advertising  and consumer loyalty programmes, there are many different marketing approaches to choose from.

Personal (face-to-face) selling

In order to win over prospective clients, a company routinely organises face-to-face sales presentations delivered by its representatives. Developing connections with you, on the other hand, is much less difficult than doing it through any of the other methods.

Traditional advertising 

Running sponsored advertisements of any form will allow you to reach a broader audience and help you generate quick interaction and transactions. This can lead to more sales. This type of marketing is conducted on a one-to-one basis, and the costs connected with it are decided by competitive bidding.

i.e.) Print advertising, billboards, TV, radio, etc.

Direct marketing

It is the process of communicating a message that is hyper-targeted to a particular audience via the use of many marketing channels. It provides more possibilities to gather input from consumers swiftly and sustain interactions with those clients.

Think about the fact that the continued success of your company is entirely dependent on the patronage it receives for a while. How would you react? When a customer buys one of your items, tries it out, and finds it to be exactly what they were looking for, there is a substantial chance that they will stick with your company for a significant length of time. It would be a huge mistake if you forgot about these customers, so make sure not to do so. Instead, you might incentivize individuals to share their information by giving complimentary goods or services in exchange for the information they supply. You may put that information to use to sell your wares in a new market  where people have no idea that your product even exists since they are utterly unaware of its existence. You can utilise that knowledge to your advantage.

The first thing you need to consider is that the regulars that come to your business are why it is still in business. Customers who are delighted with a product are far more likely to desire to buy it from the same individual retailer again in the future. In spite of this, the overwhelming majority of businesses have a history of making the mistake of ignoring consumers in some way; they do not include customers in giving information about what they think about a product that is in question.

One thing is essential to keep in mind: you should never disregard any of the clients that come into your place of business. They have already decided to purchase your wares and have no intention of changing their minds now. Gathering as much information as you can about your customers is the most productive course of action you can take.  You might make the offer to give them with an item or service in exchange for the information that they provide in exchange for the information that they provide. With the aid of the information that you have obtained, you will be able to promote your stuff to a new market that is completely unaccustomed to your products. This will be possible because of the information that you have gathered.

Social Media

You have the option of marketing your wares on a wide range of platforms available on the internet, each of which grants you access to a sizeable population of prospective buyers.  These days, practically everyone uses at least one social media network, and two of the most popular ones are  Facebook  and  Instagram . If you make use of this platform, you will be able to increase people’s awareness of the products you sell. You might talk about the several applications it is put to work in and how crucial it is for those specific uses. In addition, you may demonstrate folks how your product is superior to other items. This would be in contrast to other promotional strategies, which merely impose their product on everyone without respect for the individual consumers’ requirements or preferences. If you don’t believe me, there is something you can do to make sure that your product is available to potential consumers who have a strong chance of turning into actual customers. If you do this, you will increase the likelihood of potential consumers becoming actual customers. Start by launching the Facebook app on the device you’re using. You are going to get what it is that I am trying to say to you, and you will get it. There is a one in ten chance that you will come across an advertisement for “ Zomato ,” which will offer you with a discount of fifty percent on your first purchase if you do so. If you do so, you will receive the discount. If you are now having symptoms of hunger or if the current time is twelve o’clock in the afternoon, you should eat something (lunchtime).

When it comes to the efficiency of direct marketing, there is nothing that can compare to the use of social media as a promotional strategy. It is now much simpler for a company to communicate with individuals in the real world, even on a more personal level, because social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ attract millions upon millions of users on a daily basis. Examples of these websites include Google+ and Twitter. The social media environment provides a more relaxed atmosphere in which to advertise your wares. Your company may be able to “connect” with consumers on a more relaxed and personal level thanks to social media, which enables you to engage with them rather than “trying to sell” its products to the customers who are out there. You can instantly connect with a large number of potential customers via social media , and everyone of these customers will have their own individual perspective regarding your company or business. As a direct consequence of this, there is currently a sizable population of prospective customers in the market.

It is essential to bear in mind the importance of establishing a presence for your company on as many different social media platforms as possible. Obviously, it is imperative that you make certain that the manner in which you present your business is totally congruent with the brand that you have established. In addition, you should create content that will educate your readers and the individuals with whom you do business on the service or product your company offers.

Sales promotion

Execution of a transitory marketing activity to draw attention and encourage customers to make a conversion or purchase the product or service. Even while you can get fast responses and participate in the conversation, the setting is not conducive to the development of meaningful relationships that last.

When merchandise is displayed at retail businesses, it is often organised on racks and shelves in such a way that it is immediately visible to customers as soon as they enter through the front door. Convenience and encouraging customers to make hasty purchases are the two key drivers behind why shops do this. You have certainly noticed that there is a rack in the store that promotes tempting bargains on a specific product or that there are several goods positioned along the aisles of the store. Both of these things may be found towards the front of the store. There is a method to the madness that underlies the choices made by these shops. They do this for one of two reasons: either to boost the total quantity of items sold or to have more of their inventory moved. This strategy encourages customers to make hurried purchases of particular products while they are waiting in line to pay for the items they have purchased from the business.

Branded Promotional Gifts 

A wide variety of companies utilises this tried-and-true strategy to successfully sell their brands to consumers. Instead of handing out business cards, this marketing strategy involves printing the company name, logo, and contact information on a practical present. This replaces the traditional method of passing out business cards. For example, Japan companies distribute millions of napkins with their brand name printed on the envelopes of the napkins. These napkins are given away for free. The logic for this is derived from the fact that most people will chuck out a business card without even casting a cursory glance at it. On the other hand, people do not often throw away napkins since they are useful items, and there is a strong chance that the person it is provided will retain it for a longer time after getting it. Additionally, people enjoy getting free gifts, and a well-known truth is that a happy customer will bring in greater money for your organisation. Additionally, people really enjoy receiving free gifts. Therefore, providing your customers with free presents is one of the most efficient strategies to maintain their satisfaction with your business.

Public relations

You are able to handle both positive and negative voices from customers if you supply  appropriate information  and do so in order to construct a favourable image for your company and establish closer relationships with your customers.  If you do this, you can handle both positive and negative voices from customers.

Public relations, often known as the act of building a favourable brand image in the eyes of the media, has continuously been recognised as one of the most effective marketing methods. [Case in point:] You will be able to engage with the target demographic in a meaningful way if you provide them with good information about your organisation and share that information with them. Businesses engage in public relations efforts such as holding press conferences, distributing news releases, and conducting interviews with members of the media. The use of sponsorships as a sort of public relations strategy is something that organisations use rather regularly in order to establish a favourable image for their organisation. Small businesses may decide to fund local children’s sports teams in addition to local markets or fairs, but they may also opt to sponsor local markets or fairs.

After-Sale Customer Survey

When you get in touch with your customers via phone calls, emails, or text messages in order to learn about their experiences shopping with you, you may accomplish three things: 1. It provides the appearance that you care about your customers and gives them the sense that you care about them. 2. It opens the way for a variety of different types of marketing and advertising. 3. The feedback offered by your clients may be useful to you in making adjustments to your business.

You have the option to notify your customers about any existing or upcoming sales that apply to your products at any point in the course of the discussion that you are having with them. If they are satisfied with the services you have given them, you may politely enquire as to whether or not they would be willing to leave a positive review on the website. As a direct consequence of this happening, your organisation’s reputation will improve.

Word-of-mouth marketing

It is the process of encouraging individuals to communicate about your company’s products and services with other people who are a part of their  social networks , such as friends and family. It will provide qualified leads since consumers trust their friends and family’s words more than they believe a business’s words.

Free Product and sample Giveaways 

Free product samples distributed to potential customers  are a great strategy to promote an organisation and assure the company’s continued success. Customers are allowed to take home and test out samples of various products that are sold here. If you offer consumable things such as food or other household goods, a giveaway might be a fantastic approach to employ to get people interested in what you are selling. This is especially true if you sell food. It is crucial to emphasise that this tactic is efficient for convincing the individuals who are a part of your target audience to purchase from you.

This advertising approach is used by enterprises of varying sizes and scopes, ranging from sole proprietorships to international conglomerates, and it may be effective for all of them. If you apply this strategy, you will almost immediately notice an increase in the number of people purchasing your products. The use of this strategy is more likely to be seen in businesses that deal in either food or cosmetics. They provide individuals with free samples of their products and urge them to try new things in order to motivate people to branch out and try new things. For instance, you have undoubtedly been to a shopping mall and seen a little counter somewhere in the centre of the complex that an employee of a certain brand staffs. At this counter, the representative for the brand gives away free samples of the items made by the business to everyone who goes by. In addition, a representative may sometimes ask people to whom the company is distributing free samples to provide personal information, such as an email address, to get the free product. Using the information that has been provided to you, you will be able to advertise your product in the future.

Throwing contests for promotion 

Businesses widely use this sort of promotional strategy in order to carve out a niche in the market for a product that has only recently been launched to customers. For instance, you have surely seen that many bloggers and YouTubers have been posting about the relationships they have formed with a variety of firms and encouraging their viewers to accomplish various challenges so that they may be included in their contests. In addition, many companies provide their clients with the option to earn a unique discount by entering a code made available by a certain YouTuber or blogger. Alternately, you might arrange contests in a more traditional manner. For instance, you could hold a competition in the store and invite customers to join so that they have a greater chance of winning.

Customer loyalty program

With the assistance of a customer loyalty programme, you will be able to persuade your current clientele to make further purchases and to continue being clients of your business. This will, over the course of time, bring you a significant rise in income.

Customer Incentive Referral Program

Through the implementation of  this marketing strategy , your current clientele will be leveraged, and they will be incentivized to refer your products or services to the members of their own families and social networks. In exchange for their recommendation, you may give them some freebies or offer them a discount on the next purchase they make. For instance, many online shops provide a “Customer Incentive Referral Program” to broaden their customer base by using their current audience. This allows them to attract new customers more easily. When compared to the expenses associated with more traditional types of promotion, the price of this strategy is noticeably more affordable.

Customer’s Appreciation Events

A strategy of this sort comprises organising a gathering for your customers on a more personal scale than usual. This tiny gesture will not cost you as much as more extensive marketing would, but it will improve individuals’ brand loyalty towards your firm. You could also have smaller competitions and give the winner a gift basket or a voucher that can be used towards a future purchase. As an alternate incentive, you could provide the winner with a discount on their subsequent purchase. Pizza, soft drinks, and a variety of other snacks are just some examples of the kind of food that might be served at an event of this nature in order to make it more appealing to attendees. Customers will be encouraged to shop at your store as a result of this. Make sure that the products you wish to sell are displayed in such a manner that they draw people’s attention by utilising a smart arrangement. This is quite important.

Causes and Charity

People have a strong desire to cultivate ties with companies that, in addition to providing high-quality goods and services, also contribute positively to society’s development. Because of this, a significant number of smaller firms, in addition to power corporations, have begun to implement this strategy in order to expand their customer base. In order to accomplish this goal, you will need to work in conjunction with a charitable organisation or a non-governmental organisation (NGO). Then you can publicise your initiative on your social media accounts, website, and in your stores so that people become aware of it and buy your products so that they may do their part to contribute to society. This can be done so that people can do their bit to contribute to society. One company that sells stationery and goes by the name “Classmate” is an excellent example of this sort of advertising strategy. The students in the class tell their consumers that for each item they buy, “one rupee” would be contributed to the education of underprivileged youngsters in India. This strategy targets people’s emotional responses in an effort to boost sales. The goal is to appeal to people’s feelings. There is no drawback to putting this strategy into action, therefore, there is no reason not to give it a try.

WHY IS A PROMOTION STRATEGY SO IMPORTANT?

Promotion of a company’s products or services is one of the most essential steps involved in the marketing process. It focuses on how to correctly market your product and service to potential clients, as well as how to convince them to make a purchase of whatever it is that you are selling, and it teaches you how to do both of these things effectively.

To circle back to what I was saying, you can take potential clients from the awareness stage into the action stage if you have an amazing marketing plan and apply it appropriately.  It helps you to generate leads, build a considerable amount of brand awareness, and cultivate a long-term relationship with your target audience.

In addition,  having a marketing plan helps you save costs for promotion that are not required, which is another benefit of having a plan. They will come to recognise your brand more regularly and pick you over the other available alternatives because you are marketing to the individuals who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer instead of marketing to all and everyone.

One of the numerous benefits that may accrue to a company that puts time and effort into building a favourable corporate image and reputation is word-of-mouth marketing, which is only one of the many benefits that may accrue to the organisation. One further advantage is that it’s possible to bring in and keep a larger number of clients.

A company’s success depends on a number of elements, one of which is its level of promotion and marketing. By marketing the products, potential customers are given the chance to get a grasp of the benefits that will be attained by making a purchase of the product, which in turn increases the likelihood that the potential customers will make a purchase. The company will have an easier time retaining the loyalty of its customers if it employs a plan that has a  component of promotion and marketing  that is both effective and well-designed.  Incorporating a product life cycle is also quite important, given that its ultimate purpose is to prepare for the generation of additional sales, which may ultimately result in an increase in profit. This is quite important because the product life cycle’s ultimate purpose is to prepare for the generation of additional sales.

DISCLAIMER THIS WEBSITE IS MEANT TO ONLY PROVIDE GENERAL ADVICE; IT DOES NOT PROVIDE ANY FORM OF PERSONAL FINANCIAL OR INVESTMENT ADVICE WHATSOEVER. ALSO, CHANGES IN LEGISLATION MAY OCCUR FREQUENTLY. BEFORE TAKING ANY ACTIONS DEPENDING ON THE CONTENTS OF THIS INFORMATION, WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU FIRST SEEK OUR OFFICIAL ADVICE IN ORDER TO VERIFY THE ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION IN QUESTION. WE MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY OF SUCH INFORMATION AND ACCEPT NO LIABILITY IN CONNECTION THEREWITH. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM SOURCES EWM ACCOUNTANTS & BUSINESS ADVISORS BELIEVES TO BE RELIABLE. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU SEEK THE ADVICE OF A TAX ADVISOR, a CPA, a FINANCIAL ADVISOR, an ATTORNEY, AN ACCOUNTANT, AND ANY OTHER PROFESSIONAL THAT CAN ASSIST YOU IN UNDERSTANDING AND EVALUATING THE RISKS THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH ANY INVESTMENT.

Guest post by : team Form -

Like this? Share it...

• Bookkeeping
• Financial Advisors
• Financial Planners
• Mortgage Broker
• Productivity

Starting a Small Business Help, Advice & Tips

How To Use Xero in 13 Easy Steps

Choosing Cloud Software? Look Out for These Trends

GST for Businesses - What You Need to Know

30+ Best Mortgage Brokers in Melbourne [2024]

• Starting a Business
• Growing a Business
• Small Business Guide
• Business News
• Science & Technology
• Money & Finance
• For Subscribers
• Write for Entrepreneur
• Entrepreneur Store
• United States
• Asia Pacific
• Middle East
• South Africa

Copyright © 2024 Entrepreneur Media, LLC All rights reserved. Entrepreneur® and its related marks are registered trademarks of Entrepreneur Media LLC

Free Webinar | May 7: How to Write Your One-Page Business Plan Workshop Did you know entrepreneurs with business plans are 260% more likely to launch? Join our workshop on May 7th and learn how to create a one-page business plan that will help you get your business off the ground. Register now!

By Entrepreneur Staff • Apr 16, 2024

Do you wish you could run a business that would make the most of your skills, experience and earn you the money that you're really worth?

Or perhaps you've already started your own business but it seems like no matter how hard you work you're no closer to the dream that inspired you to start your company in the first place.

If you're not hitting your goals, it's not due to a lack of ambition, you just need a better plan to make it happen.

Specifically, a business plan.

Related: Join our workshop on May 7th and learn how to create a one-page business plan that will help you get your business off the ground. Register now!

A study from BusinessDIT revealed that:

Entrepreneurs with business plans are 260% more likely to launch

71% of fast-growing businesses have plans

With the right business plan, you'll be more likely to launch and grow faster once you do.

So, why don't you have an updated plan? There are a few common reasons.

"I'm too busy"

"It's too confusing"

"I have too much else going on"

It's time to end the excuses so you can achieve predictable revenue growth without going back to school for an MBA.

Join Our Free How to Write Your Business Plan Workshop

During this workshop, you'll learn how to create a one-page business plan that will help you perfect your strategy, marketing and business processes.

You're just one hour away from having the clarity needed to reduce confusion, improve your offer and maximize your revenue potential.

You'll also receive a customizable one-page business plan so you can immediately apply what you've learned.

Now is the time to work on your business so the time you spend working in your business will be more efficient and rewarding.

Imagine knowing that at any given time, you're taking the right actions that are directly aligned with the vision you had when you first started your business.

There's no need to imagine. Just sign up for the workshop and then commit to applying what you've learned.

All registered attendees will get a recording of the presentation and a copy of the one-page business plan template. And if you know of anyone else who should attend, share this with them so they can hold you accountable.

Sign up now and turn your business idea into action.

About the Speaker:

Terry Rice is a high-performance coach to entrepreneurs, keynote speaker and journalist at Entrepreneur magazine. He's also the host of Reclaim + Advance, a podcast that helps entrepreneurs overcome setbacks and perform at their highest level.

Prior to becoming a creator-entrepreneur, Terry's previous experience includes internal consulting roles at Adobe and Meta.

In addition to his role as Director of Growth and Partnerships at Good People Digital, Terry is an instructor at New York University, speaks at events for leading companies - including Amazon and Google - and has been featured as a subject matter expert by Good Morning America, Fast Company and the Wall Street Journal.

Based in Brooklyn, he is a husband, father of five children, and is an advocate for mental and physical fitness.

Entrepreneur Staff

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick Red Arrow

• This 103-Year-Old Doctor Opened Her Medical Practice Before Women Could Have Bank Accounts — Here Are Her 6 Secrets to a Healthy, Successful Life
• Lock 5 Ways You Might Be Cheating on Your Taxes — And Why You Will Get Caught
• I've Had a Secret Side Hustle for Decades. It Keeps Tens of Thousands of Dollars in My Pocket — and Gets Me Into Places I Wouldn't Go Otherwise .
• Lock Here's How Steve Jobs Dealt With Negative Press and Avoided Brand Disasters
• One Factor Is Helping This Entrepreneur Tackle Business Ownership Later in Life. Now, She's Jumping Into a $20 Billion Industry .
• Lock Narcissism Can Help You Be Successful — Here's How to Harness It Without Going Too Far, According to an Ivy League-Trained Psychotherapist

Most Popular Red Arrow

Treat a co-worker to a discounted movie.

This Regal Premiere Movie e-ticket lets you get 33 percent off the price of admission.

How CEO Favoritism Contributes to Workplace Toxicity — and How to Create a Fair and Inclusive Work Environment

CEO favoritism undermines company culture, but these effective strategies for fostering fairness and engagement can help avoid favoritism pitfalls.

This Flexible Side Hustle Is Helping Millions Earn Extra Cash — and Might Be 'More Attractive' Than an Office Job

Side hustles remain popular for additional income — and have many questioning the 9-5 model altogether.

Target Slammed With Lawsuit for Allegedly Collecting, Storing Customers' 'Sensitive' Personal Data Without Consent

The class action lawsuit was filed in Illinois.

Building a Culture of Quality — How to Ensure Your Products, Processes and Teams Meet the Highest Standards

Quality should be at the center of your organization. Here's how to define and maintain quality standards in every aspect of your business.

Apple Is No Longer the Top Phonemaker in the World as AI Pressure and Competition Intensifies

Apple's iPhone shipments declined 10% from January through March.

Successfully copied link

Nike bosses plan 'biggest' Olympics spend as marketing ramps up

• Medium Text

The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.

Reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Matt Scuffham and David Holmes

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. New Tab , opens new tab

Thomson Reuters

London-based reporter covering the European retail sector through a global lens. Focusing on companies including Adidas, H&M, Ikea, and Inditex and analysing corporate strategy, consumer trends, and regulatory changes, Helen also covers major supermarket groups like Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour, and Casino. She has a special interest in sustainability and how investors push for change in companies. Previously based in Johannesburg where she covered the mining industry.

Business Chevron

Apple ceo says looking into possibility of building manufacturing facility in indonesia.

Apple Inc will look into the possibility of building a manufacturing facility in Indonesia, its CEO said on Wednesday after meeting President Joko Widodo.