What do you want to accomplish this year? If your company is trying to figure out how to grow business in 2022, you’ve come to the right place. We developed this short guide to walk you through the marketing techniques for creating a good strategy.

Think About Your Business

When’s the last time you sat down and thought about your business? Things probably look a bit different than they did a few years—or even months—ago. So, it’s always good to start with thinking about how you present yourself online and what you can (or hope to) offer your customers.

Identify your strengths as weaknesses as a business. What are you doing well, and where can you improve? Who are your biggest competitors, and what are they doing to succeed in the marketplace? Think about different B2B marketing techniques you can use to outshine them.

What is your value proposition? Meaning, what do you offer customers, and why should they choose your product/service? How can you solve their problems? Your 2022 marketing strategy should focus on the value you bring to customers.

Determine Your Target Audience

You cannot be everything to everyone. Not if you want to be successful, anyway. Think about your target audience and what they need to know. If you’ve already defined your target audience and understand their pain points and challenges, great! If not, that’s okay.

Anyone falling under the latter category of folks should start by creating buyer personas. Simply put, personas are a fictional representation of your typical customer. Persona development takes time and requires some market research, but it is worth it! Understanding your target audience helps you bring the right customers to your site and build communication strategies that nurture leads and keep past customers engaged.

Set Your Goals

I hate to break it to you, but saying, “We want more sales!” is not a goal—of course, you want more sales! Your 2022 marketing strategy should answer these questions:  How much do you want to increase sales? How can you reach more customers? What are your competitors doing?

Put thought into each goal in your 2022 marketing strategy and always make sure they follow the “SMART” model: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-based.

• Specific: Make goals specific and focused—what do you want to achieve?
• Measurable: Using hard numbers or something else measurable lets you track your successes (and where you fell short)
• Attainable: I’m all for setting lofty goals, but you also need to be realistic. Carve out some baby steps to work towards those big goals and dreams.
• Relevant: Be honest with yourself and think about whether the goals in your marketing strategy align with what you hope to achieve as a business.
• Time-based: What is a realistic timeline for achieving your goal? Remember that good things take time.

Here are a few examples of good and not-no-great goals people might include when developing a marketing strategy.
 

NAILED IT! Increase qualified leads by 10% over the next six months Create email series to promote the June product launch Increase monthly revenue by $2,500

NOPE, TRY AGAIN Get more leads Send more emails to our customers Quadruple monthly revenue

Plan Your Content Strategy

If you want to promote your business, engage people, and attract qualified leads, you need content. And I’m not talking about slapping a few sentences on your site, posting a link to a product page on social media, and calling it good. Successful content requires planning, and each piece should have a specific purpose.

What do you want the content to do? Attract leads? Introduce a new product or service? Drive traffic to a specific page on your site? Get someone to click the “buy” or “RFQ” button? These are all things to consider when using content as a marketing tactic.

• Site Content: Your website needs written or visual content that guides customers through the decision-making process. Remember to keep content customer-centric; it’s about them and solving their problems, not you.
• Email: Warm leads and keep current customers engaged. If you follow these best practices, email marketing can be a valuable tool for your business.
• Blogging: Writing about industry-relevant topics is a great way to increase brand awareness and demonstrate your expertise. Blogging grabs people at the “awareness” stage and helps build confidence in your products/services and capabilities.
• Case Studies: Anyone can say they’re the best at something—case studies help prove it to your leads and customers.
• Social Media: Announce product launches or new services, share industry insights, and promote your business. The key is providing content your followers want—don’t just use social as a sales platform or people will disengage.
• Video: Well-made videos can be just as effective as the written word. Tutorials, product guides, and digital simulations engage users and can be shared across various channels. Quality matters here, so enlist the help of a professional to get the best results. 

Measure Your 2022 Marketing Strategy Success and Make Improvements

Things are constantly changing in the business world. It’s always a good idea to reevaluate your goals throughout the year and change your 2022 marketing strategy as necessary.

Remember: Marketing is all about trial and error, so don’t get frustrated if something doesn’t work out the first time or you fall short of a goal. When that happens, take a step back, reconsider your approach, and try again.

It sounds cliché, but teamwork really does make the dream work. You might be lucky enough to have an in-house team to develop your marketing strategy, but if you don’t, Ecreative’s marketing experts can help. We’ll help you create a marketing strategy for 2022 and beyond.