What Should a Marketing Strategy Include? A Guide for Growing Businesses

1. A Specific Business Goal

“Get more customers” is a starting point, but it leaves too many decisions unanswered. Which customers? For which services? How much additional work can your team handle?

A useful goal identifies the business outcome you want marketing to support.

For our landscaping company, that might mean adding recurring maintenance contracts within an existing service area. That goal creates a different plan than promoting one-time yard cleanups or large installation projects.

Before choosing marketing activities, ask:

• Which products or services do we want to grow?
• Which work is profitable and practical for our team to deliver?
• Are we trying to attract new customers, retain existing ones, or increase repeat purchases?
• What would meaningful progress look like over the next few months?

Your answers help determine what deserves attention first.

2. A Clearly Defined Audience

Knowing who could buy from you is different from knowing who is the best fit.

Your audience should reflect the customers you can serve well, the needs you can meet, and the buying decisions you need to influence.

For the landscaping company, “local homeowners” is broad. A more useful audience might be homeowners within its service area who want ongoing lawn and landscape maintenance because they lack the time or desire to manage it themselves.

The company would also need to consider property requirements, minimum service commitments, and whether its crews can efficiently reach those neighborhoods.

Define your audience by asking:

• What problem are these customers trying to solve?
• What makes someone a good fit for our services?
• What questions or concerns come up before they purchase?
• Where do our best existing customers come from?

Those details help shape your message and where you deliver it.

3. A Message That Explains Why Customers Should Choose You

“Quality work” and “great customer service” may be true, but they give potential customers little detail to evaluate.

Your strategy should explain what you offer, who it helps, and why it matters to that person.

Our landscaping company might focus on helping homeowners keep their properties maintained through a dependable recurring service. Its messaging could explain what is included, how scheduling works, and what customers can expect between visits.

Support your message with evidence you actually have, such as project photos, relevant customer reviews, clear service descriptions, or documented results.

The goal is to make choosing your business easier by answering the questions that matter before someone contacts you.

4. Marketing Channels With Clear Roles

You do not need to give every marketing channel equal attention. Each one should have a reason to be in your plan.

For the landscaping company, the strategy might assign these roles:

• Search advertising: Reach people actively looking for maintenance services in the company’s service area.
• Email: Introduce maintenance options to existing customers who have previously booked other work.
• Social content: Show completed work, explain services, and answer common questions.
• Website content: Help interested visitors understand the service and request an estimate.

The right combination depends on your audience, goals, budget, and available resources.

Start by reviewing what already brings qualified business. Then identify the gaps. If inquiries are coming in but visitors cannot tell what your service includes, improving that information may deserve attention before expanding your advertising.

5. A Budget That Includes Execution

A marketing budget should account for the work required to carry out the strategy.

Depending on your plan, that can include strategy, content creation, design, campaign management, software, tracking, and advertising spend.

Be clear about which costs are included in a marketing provider’s fee and which are separate. For example, an advertising management fee and the money paid to an advertising platform cover different things.

Your internal time matters, too. Someone may need to approve content, provide photos, answer questions, and follow up with inquiries.

For our landscaping company, generating more estimate requests only helps if someone can respond and schedule them. The budget and plan should support that entire process.

6. Measurements Connected to Your Goal

Your strategy should define how you will evaluate progress before campaigns begin.

If your goal is recurring maintenance contracts, useful measurements could include:

• Qualified maintenance inquiries.
• Estimates scheduled.
• Estimates converted into contracts.
• Marketing cost per new contract.
• Revenue associated with those contracts.

Reach, clicks, and engagement can help explain what happens along the way. You also need to understand whether that activity leads to the business outcome you wanted.

Ask new customers how they found you, keep inquiry records consistent, and establish a process for connecting marketing activity with sales outcomes where possible.

7. Clear Responsibilities and a Review Schedule

A strategy needs people and time behind it.

Identify who creates the work, who approves it, who launches it, and who responds when a potential customer makes contact.

Then set a review schedule. Use those reviews to examine what is happening and decide what needs attention.

For example, if the landscaping company receives plenty of inquiries from outside its service area, it should review its targeting and location messaging. If qualified estimates rarely become contracts, it should examine the sales conversation, service fit, and customer feedback.

The next decision should respond to the problem the evidence reveals.

Does Your Business Have a Clear Marketing Strategy?

Use these questions to assess your current plan:

• Can we name the business goal our marketing supports?
• Do we know which customers we want to attract?
• Does our message explain why we are a good fit?
• Does each marketing channel have a clear purpose?
• Have we budgeted for both the work and any advertising spend?
• Can we measure progress toward the goal?
• Does every task have an owner and a deadline?

If several answers are unclear, those are useful places to begin.

At Marketing RX, we help businesses connect their goals, audience, and marketing activities, then put the plan into action.

Know your goals. Reach the right audience. Take purposeful action.