Are you new at creating an effective marketing plan for your new online business? Maybe you’re someone who is confused with marketing as a whole and you stumble across articles like these talking about the difference between a marketing strategy vs marketing plan. Well, I’m about to break it down so you can fully understand what marketing is and how you can create a marketing system in your business using the most perfect marketing tools.

What is a Marketing Strategy vs Marketing Plan?

Strategic planning, marketing campaign, digital marketing, and marketing strategies. These are all similar terms to drive traffic (people) into your online presence (your website and landing pages). So a marketing strategy overall strategic plan, and marketing plan are essentially the same thing. This will be your beginner’s guide to taking effective and strategic steps in marketing your online business objectives.

Understanding the Basics

Since you now know your marketing strategy vs marketing plan is essentially just your marketing strategy, not marketing plan examples let’s get into how you can make your marketing efforts into an effective marketing plan. The first thing you need to do is understand your target audience. This starts by understanding your business goals. What is the value proposition your offer and who are you going to sell your offer to?

This is called developing your unique value proposition. This is the first step in your marketing game plan. Once you figure out what you’re going to sell and who you’re selling it for, this is when you can figure out your own marketing strategies and goals. The second step is figuring out what your overall strategic marketing plan is going to be.

Event marketing, content marketing, and email marketing are all different forms of marketing. Don’t be afraid to have a marketing mix (utilizing more than one strategy) i.e. content marketing, email marketing, and influencer marketing.

Setting the Foundation

The third step to your content marketing strategy vs marketing plan (the same thing) guide is what channels (platforms) you want potential clients to use. This is the part that makes sense to most people. Start an Instagram and TikTok account. That’s as far as most people get. While having a content strategy for social media is important this is not the most important step. Let’s get into why.

You measure marketing campaign success through your KPIs or key performance indicators. A key performance indicator is not how many followers you can obtain (even if they are quality followers) on marketing channels. Hate to break it to you, but you don’t own your social media followers. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook could and have had blackouts in the past. People get hacked all the time.

So when it comes to social media, have it, but don’t have it be your marketing department main bread and butter. This leads me to the fourth step. Your comprehensive marketing strategy also needs to have marketing objectives that make sense. Marketing initiatives are only effective if you’re focused on converting prospects into loyal consumers.

Marketing Strategy Unveiled

This is what you came here for. The competitive advantage comes from only two things. Search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing. These are the two business goals that need to be set first within your business strategy. Once both of these objectives have been achieved then you can focus your marketing efforts on growing your social media.

This is where you have to be honest with yourself. Do you want to be a creator? Someone who doesn’t care about creating a business. You more so want to create content in hopes of going viral. This is totally okay.

If you just want the influence and that’s your main driving factor focus all your time on growing your social media platforms. But if you’re looking to become a business owner looking to become profitable quickly this strategic marketing plan template is an essential step. This strategic planning process requires you to become an authority in your space (market industry).

Deconstructing the Marketing Plan

SEO or search engine optimization involves ranking for different types of keywords so you rank on the first page of Google. This campaign ultimately will give you free monthly traffic (it will drive people to your website). Which is the goal. If you don’t have a monthly ad budget this whole campaign will be cheaper and more effective.

Email marketing is prospects that you own. You will forever have these people’s email and phone number (unless they change it), but let’s be honest the odds of social media having a blackout is more feasible than someone changing their email or phone number (what a pain that would be).

Alignment and Integration

The fifth step is making sure your marketing tactics are aligned with marketing objectives, your ideal clients and overall business goals. You need to make sure you understand your audience’s buyer personas. This will help you have a strategic plan and an effective buyer journey. So how do you understand your target market buyer personas?

This comes down to understanding your audience’s psychographic data. Similar to demographic data (age, location, gender, education, etc.) psychographic data is your audience’s beliefs and morals. Your business and marketing plan is about resonating with how your audience feels, not how you feel about your marketing plans or business. I’m going to say this again because it’s very important. You need to speak how your audience likes to be spoken to. It’s not about how you want to speak within your business.

Your business goal is about serving a community of your choice. All of your other marketing plans, activities and market opportunities are not just about increasing sales, it’s about catering to new markets and changing the lives of your potential customers.

Implementation and Execution

So where do you begin? If you’re a female entrepreneur looking to grow your online business you begin here. Your one and only business goal needs to be setting up your business’s marketing plan template before you can take on new customers.

I get it you want to make your Twitter account, increase sales, find your ideal customer, and jump into paid advertising, but before you get into all of that you need to do strategic planning and make sure you have the right marketing tools, marketing budget, and marketing materials. Don’t rush your marketing plan.

Adapting to a Dynamic Landscape

Your marketing game plan is always going to change. Don’t get shiny object syndrome. With the rise of AI new and emerging marketing strategies are coming into play, but the real winners use the same strategy for long periods of time (years) and stay extremely consistent at it. In order for you to win focus on search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing for a long period of time, and I promise you, you will become successful no matter what market research niche you are in.

Creating Your Roadmap

I want to quickly mention this again because it’s the determining factor on what your business objectives end up looking like in a year from now. You can either go the creator route. Creating consistent content in hopes of going viral. You can focus on trying to build your brand through social media platforms in hopes of acquiring customers through sponsorships and brand deals or you can go the business owner route.

The business owner route will make you profitable faster and put you in the position of not just influence, but also the power to replace yourself and build a marketing team resulting in scaling your company faster and reaching your marketing goals faster as well. Decide which one you are. Either one is a solid plan.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Stay the course. Consistent efforts in your business are more effective than no consistency at all. Consistency doesn’t have to look like completing a lot of work every single day. Consistency is showing up, not showing up to your expectations.

Building a business takes time. I know the end goal is worth working really hard for, but the reality is it will take time to build a business. There’s so much value in what you’re doing, remember that. Value isn’t created in a moment. It’s created through time and so are your business goals.

Key Considerations: Marketing Strategy vs Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy vs marketing plan are the same thing. Your marketing goals depend on what your long-term goal is. If you’re an artist becoming a creator will be more beneficial not just in your life, but the people’s lives you touch around you. If you’re more entrepreneurial creating a business venture will serve you more than just being a creator. You also will touch many people’s lives as well.

Wrapping Up

So why should you listen to me? The big question. Well at 23 I sold my first marketing package which was $20,000 in total. Since then I have grown a successful digital marketing agency with my partner then had the fantastic idea to step away and build another business teaching faith-based female entrepreneurs how to build a successful and profitable online business. So yeah, that’s about it. If you found any value be sure to check out The Commendable Kind and follow along. We’re just getting started!

What is the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan?

There is no difference! Marketing is an umbrella term for ways to drive traffic to your online business.

What is the difference between a plan and a strategy?

Essentially a plan is a short-term play on how you’re going to accomplish a set of tasks or goals whereas a strategy is a long-term play that focuses on the big picture and how to achieve its objectives.

What is marketing plan and strategy?

They are the same thing. A marketing plan and strategy is your intended method on how you’re going to source and serve leads within your niche.