Marketing Strategy Examples From 5 Dominating Brands
What is a marketing strategy?
A marketing strategy is your plan for funneling your marketing budget, time, and creativity toward engaging potential customers and generating interest in your products or services.
With a marketing strategy, you can bring together what you know about your customers and what they look for when considering products or services in your industry with your creativity. You can then use this to create a plan to nurture those customers across various platforms. Your marketing goal is to drive growth through brand recognition, increased purchases, and loyalty.
Why are marketing strategies important?
A marketing strategy requires you to carefully plan what you want to accomplish. Documenting the strategy you’ll use, the objectives you’re working toward, and the metrics you’ll use to measure progress can increase your chances of success.
In fact, 65% of the most successful marketers reported beginning their campaigns with a documented strategy. On the other hand, only 14% of the least successful marketers had a documented strategy.
Building a concrete strategy can help bring your team together and improve communication. Everyone on the marketing team has a clear understanding of business goals, the metrics used to measure their online marketing success, and the strategy they’ll use to get there. Working toward a common endpoint ensures they remain on task.
It also creates better accountability within the team, as each team member knows what’s expected of them. The plan can help your team know the types of content they want to create for the different platforms involved in the campaign. Altogether, documented, well-strategized marketing campaigns become more cohesive, successful endeavors.
6 main marketing strategy types
Below are six main types of marketing strategies that brands employ when working to engage their target customers. Content marketing
Content marketing describes the brand strategy of creating content that customers will turn to and trust as they seek more information about a particular industry or solve a particular pain point. The content aims to provide potential customers with answers and information so they view the business as a valued resource. When the time comes to make a purchase, they’ll then buy from the business they trust. However, the material produced doesn’t have to be text alone—it can also include video and other imagery. For example, let’s say a brand wants to target gourmet coffee lovers. They might use content marketing and produce content that educates people on topics like how to properly brew coffee beans for maximum taste, cultivation techniques in different regions, or the differences between types of coffee beans. The customer may then come to see the brand as a valuable resource and trust them when they decide to buy their next bag of gourmet coffee. Inbound marketing
With inbound marketing, brands focus less on pushing advertising out in front of customers and more on producing high-quality material that will naturally attract customers interested in researching and then buying within the business’s sector. It comprises a core marketing tactic for digital marketing. The focus of inbound marketing lies with attracting the attention of customers rather than interrupting them as they navigate social media, television, or other common marketing channels. Consider a small business that offers computer repair services. The business knows that when people start experiencing problems with their PCs, they’re likely to search for answers online. Using inbound marketing, this business can create high-quality content that explains what different computer symptoms might mean. They might offer solutions for some easy fixes, establishing their credibility, but they might also let potential customers know when they need to come and visit the business for a true fix. Social media marketing
With social media marketing, brands might promote themselves across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The goal is to build online communities around their businesses while also creating paid ads that encourage new people to visit their social media pages or otherwise engage with their brand. Consider a local restaurant that wants to target people looking for a casual establishment for Friday nights with friends. They might create a Facebook event that promotes their trivia nights. They might also engage customers by making a Facebook post with warm-up questions and replying to people’s comments by inviting them to visit the restaurant to keep playing. These engagements build a community around the brand, creating a positive impression and encouraging customers to patronize the establishment. Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) describes a specific set of tactics brands use to help their website appear higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for desktop and mobile devices. This might include aligning content with targeted keywords customers use and queries that prospects make online. The marketing team focuses on establishing trust and authority by developing content that customers can rely on. As part of a larger strategic marketing strategy, the goal is to create content that search engine algorithms deem authoritative and trustworthy, pushing the brand’s website higher up the SERPs. This, in turn, helps attract more attention from interested buyers. For example, a business that offers plumbing services might dedicate content on their website to exploring common plumbing challenges, offering advice to customers, and making sure Google knows their location. Incorporating Google My Business can play an important role in their local SEO strategy. Email marketing
Email marketing involves the careful cultivation of email lists based on consumer interests. For example, a brand might invite people to register for a newsletter or sign up to download a white paper. Once the email address and lead information are collected, the brand can remain in contact with the prospect by sending out regular emails with content they’re most likely to find interesting and engaging, encouraging them to become paying customers. Many brands also incorporate segmentation to help them get the right content in front of the right customers. Segmentation helps companies break their email lists into groups based on criteria, such as budget, location, or how close potential customers are to buying. Consider a fitness professional who offers classes through a local gym. They might create content related to eating well or new exercises to try to encourage people to leave their email addresses. They can then send email campaigns encouraging people to educate themselves on health or to try out a fitness session to see what they can accomplish with a professional. Paid media advertising
With paid media advertising, brands pay to promote their organization on different platforms. For example, they might incorporate pay-per-click (PPC) links to get ads presented on the SERPs. Meanwhile, social media marketing may call for paid ads alongside social media posts. Paid advertising can also retarget customers who have visited the brand page in the past.
This digital marketing strategy also involves landing pages. When a customer clicks on an ad, they should find themselves on a site that directly answers their needs. These pages make lead generation possible.
Let’s say a business wants to promote an upcoming sale. They might create a social media campaign that targets people in their geographic area, a search engine marketing campaign that targets people searching for sales in their industry, and a retargeting campaign to target those who visited their store before but didn’t make a purchase. Together, these different paid media strategies can entice customers to come and check out the store and its sales.
Marketing strategy examples from successful dominant brands
Now that we’ve reviewed some core marketing strategies, let’s explore some excellent examples of effective marketing. These include:
Spotify: Offer a different user experience
GoPro: Trust user-generated content
Taco Bell: Understand your audience
Red Bull: Take risks
Vogue: Power your loyalty programs
1. Spotify: Offer a different user experience
Customers often make purchases or remain loyal to a brand based on how the products or services make them feel. Spotify exemplifies this in their marketing plan, focusing on creating an outstanding user experience. Spotify’s strategy focuses on increasing functionality and making its platform easy to use. The brand offers features that customers genuinely appreciate and that encourage deeper engagement with its music and podcast streaming capabilities. Customers can also use the service for free or pay for premium features, with different paid tiers offered depending on the number of listeners on one account. Other features include curated playlists—including a daily mix playlist based on what the user recently listened to and a “year in review” playlist that breaks down a user’s listening habits over the course of the past year—and an intuitive search function that shows the user’s top genres above the music categories. For even greater engagement, Spotify’s platform allows users to share playlists and see what other users are listening to with a sidebar on the desktop version. Users can also follow each other’s curated playlists. Standout features of this marketing strategy include:
Spotify’s easy-to-use interface helps users jump in and see value immediately.
There are many opportunities for personalization so playlists are built around individual tastes, moods, and styles.
Bonus features include insight and background on favorite songs and artists that add value to the user experience.
2. GoPro: Trust user-generated content
GoPro has taken the power of user-generated content to the next level. By leveraging the capacity of users to create and share their content, the brand incorporates content generation and social media into their marketing strategy.
The portable nature of the product creates a scenario where everything can be captured on video, from touching moments to athletic feats and extreme sports. This user-generated content allows the viewer to feel integrated with these events and accomplishments, creating a powerful experience.
A few key strengths of GoPro’s marketing strategy include:
The company incorporates its brand seamlessly into the content. You’ll find their logo at the beginning of the short videos.
The user-generated content inspires other viewers to take on their own potential, with a GoPro camera at their side to record their noteworthy moments.
The authentic content is primed to go viral and receive ample shares on social media, helping each piece of content go further and reach more people to boost brand visibility.
3. Taco Bell: Understand your audience
Taco Bell understands its target demographic—millennials—pretty well. In fact, their understanding is readily apparent in every part of their marketing efforts—from their humorous social media posts to offering drive-thru services until the early morning.
The fast-food chain understands that their target customers are generally people looking for a quick snack, particularly after a night out. They’re not looking to spend a fortune on fine dining. The brand is also pretty innovative with its food items, even offering vegan options.
Taco Bell’s marketing strengths come through in these areas:
The brand’s commercials and promotions focus on the right target market by featuring young people enjoying the food at night in a casual, party-like atmosphere.
The brand isn’t afraid to rebrand to stay current and embrace new platforms or technologies, like Snapchat.
The brand uses social media to connect with target customers with casual, crafted messages that are interesting and engaging without being overly promotional.
4. Red Bull: Take risks
Red Bull exemplifies taking risks in marketing. The brand’s founder initially lost all of his savings, $1 million, in just the first two years. He also struggled to find bottlers for his energy drink and to secure portions of the market. Later, when the brand started to see success and tried to expand into England, they failed miserably once again.
The brand saw a path forward by taking an enormous risk in its marketing. Rather than focusing on the product itself, Red Bull focuses on experiences they promise to create. Looking at their social media pages won’t tell you much about the product you can buy. Instead, the content revolves around people working to achieve dreams and seize opportunities.
Customers can see examples of seizing opportunities everywhere, from the brand sponsoring extreme sporting events to having athletes as brand ambassadors, particularly when introducing a product to a new market. This helps build brand awareness and prepares the target demographic for the new product.
Some key strengths of Red Bull’s marketing strategy include:
They saw failure as an opportunity to regroup and try again.
The brand’s marketing focuses less on the actual product and more on the experiences people want to have—including their slogan: “Red Bull gives you wings.”
The brand is able to focus on what drives their customers and aligns their product with those desires. This goes beyond just helping customers see the product as answering a pain point, but more as seeing a product as a part of an entire experience.
5. Vogue: Power your loyalty programs
Vogue launched a VIP loyalty program in Australia to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the brand in the country. This rewards program goes far beyond the traditional model of allowing customers to accumulate points based on purchases. Instead, the brand goes deeply into creating an experience that fashion-conscious customers are likely to appreciate.
For example, they offer access to deluxe prizes, tickets to relevant events before they go on sale, shopping events, and even opportunities to network with those who work with the magazine. Some VIPs can even gain access to exclusive Vogue VIP areas.
Vogue demonstrates the value of creating a rewards program that is tailored toward its target audience. They understand what a typical reader finds rewarding to create a powerful rewards membership experience.
From this experience, we can take away the following key strengths:
Vogue understands the importance of not making their rewards program simply an extra. It adds genuine value for their target audience.
The loyalty program is designed purposefully, incorporating the brand image and customer desires.
The rewards program further enhances the brand image by aligning closely with the image the brand wants to project elsewhere.
