Our 10 step guide to creating a consistent product marketing strategy will help you meet your goals quicker, save you time and put your customers first.

The main reason I hear from small online business owners as to why they don’t have a Product Marketing Strategy, is that they don’t have the time.

As a small business owner myself, I get that, I really do! But the benefit of having a Strategy is that in the long run it will save you time, AND make you more money!

So to help you I’ve broken down all the key elements you need to put your Product Marketing Strategy together in just 10 days…or quicker if you’ve got the time to set aside:

Day One: Your Ideal Customer

Before you can start to create an effective marketing strategy, you need to know exactly who you want to be targeting with your campaigns. This means that you need to figure out who your ideal customer is.

I like to think about who has bought from me in the past and if I could duplicate them so that all my customers were like them, what would they look like!

You need to think about answering the following questions:

• Gender?
• Age range?
• Marital status & kids?
• Location?
• Income?
• Job role?
• What do they read?
• What do they do in their spare time?

Why not even give them a name to make them feel more real.

By doing this, you are more likely to understand what your customers need from you and talk to them in a manner which attracts them to your business.

This information is also vital when it comes to paid advertising, ensuring that you get the best return for your investment, by paying money to put your business in front of the people who are most likely to buy from you, rather than people who are not your target audience.

Day Two: Set Goals

To make sure that your strategy gets you the results that you want, you need to set short and long-term goals and specify exactly what you want to achieve.

Do you want:

• To achieve £xxx sales by the end of each month / quarter / year?
• To sell xxx number of products at the end of each month / season?
• To build your social media following?
• To build your email list?
• To increase engagement on social media?
• To drive more traffic to your website?

Whatever your goals may be, make sure that you set yourself timeframes to achieve them. Start with what you want to achieve by the end of the year, then reverse engineer it back to quarterly, monthly, then weekly. That way everything you do each week is taking you closer to your end goal.

Day Three: Make Time

Creating an online marketing strategy can sound time consuming and complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.

Have a look at your schedule and set aside an hour every week that you can use to create and schedule content.

It’s better to consistently create good content 3-4 times a week, rather than creating rushed posts every day for a week followed by radio silence because you’re busy or you’ve run out of steam!

So being realistic about the number of posts you can achieve is important. If posting every day seems impossible, instead begin by posting three times a week. You can always add to that later if time allows!

Day Four: Image Library

Where do you keep your business photos? If they’re on your phone, mixed in with your personal images, and you have to spend five minutes scrolling through to find them… that’s probably not the best use of your time.

Creating an album on a platform like Google Photos or Amazon Photos not only allows you to organise your photos into different folders, eg. product images, website graphics, logos etc, but it also means you can access them from different devices just by logging in to your account!

Day Five: Update Your Landing Pages

If you’re in the midst of promoting Valentine’s Day products on your social media, but the first thing that visitors to your website see is an image that’s Christmas themed, it’s confusing and makes it harder for your customer to find what they’re looking for.

Alternatively if you’ve got one trusty product image that never changes on your home page, you’re missing a big selling trick!

Keeping your home and landing pages up to date, relevant and seasonal is such an important sales and marketing tool. It keeps customers interested in visiting your website and makes their online journey so much quicker and easier.

The simpler you can make it for your customers to find what they want, the more likely they are to buy something from you, AND return!

Day Six: Use Specific URL’s

There’s nothing more frustrating than clicking a link on a social media post about a specific product that’s caught your eye, and then being directed to the homepage of that website, or even worse, there is no link and you need to go hunting for it on their bio or on Google!

Make sure that your product pages are up to date with fabulous photos, titles and prices, ready to entice those visitors in. Then when you’re posting about a specific item on social media make sure that you’re including a link that takes your customers to that exact item.

Then when they land on that product they’re just a couple of clicks away from handing over their hard earned cash to you!

Day Seven: Instagram Shops

If you’re using Instagram and Facebook Shops, you should regularly be checking that your products are all up to date – including:

• Imagery
• Product names
• Prices
• Descriptions, and
• Links back to your website.

Imagine a potential customer comes across your product on Instagram, clicks to view the product, they love it, but the link back to your website doesn’t work! Arghhhh!! You’ve likely lost them at that vital point!

Nowadays consumers lead such busy lives, expect everything to be perfect and have such a short attention span. So the best advice I can give you is to check, check and check again! Make sure everything works seamlessly and if you’ve made it easy for them to buy…they will!

Day Eight: Your Posting Strategy

Remember the time that we set aside in Day Three? This is where we’re going to be using it! It’s time to create a posting strategy for your business.

• Promotional Calendar – I always advise to start with your annual Promotional Calendar. Plot out all your annual dates such as seasonal launches, sale periods, Mother’s Day, Easter, then pop in any Awareness Days that are relevant to your business.
• Content Calendar – Then we move onto your weekly business focussed content. This is where you think about your monthly goals and plot out the product sales posts you need to push out each week to meet those goals. In between these ‘sales’ posts, include a combination of posts that both educate and inspire, such as testimonials, how to’s, product reviews, quick tips etc.
• Want some ideas? Download my FREE E-book “10 Content Ideas to Sell More Stuff & Save You Time”.

Finally, don’t forget to ask questions. By doing this you generate more engagement and create an active community of followers who love you!

Day Nine: Creating Stories

Did you know that 58% of users say that they’re more interested in a brand after seeing it in a story*?

Ideally you should be using your stories on Instagram and Facebook at least once a day – whether to showcase specific products, to show your followers some behind the scenes action, or to create a fun poll to engage with your audience.

Did you know that you can now add links to your stories on Instagram with their new links sticker? Don’t forget to take advantage of that too!

*Credit: Hootsuite Jan 2022

Day Ten: Reply Daily

If someone comes up to you in your shop and asks you a question or gives you a compliment, you wouldn’t just ignore them? No of course you wouldn’t, that would just be rude!

The same applies on social media….after all, it’s called ‘social’ for a reason!

Please, please, please reply to your comments and DM’s daily. When someone messages you, they’re ready to buy! They’re a hot lead! So making sure you reply to them in a timely and helpful manner, more often than not results in a sale.

It also helps to build better relationships with your followers. When people start to know, like, and trust you then they’re more likely to buy from your business!

Go for it…Boost Your Business!

So what are you waiting for? Challenge yourself to create a consistent online product strategy for yourself over the next 10 days, and let me know how you get on.

If you feel like you need some dedicated 1:1 inspiration, support and accountability, book onto my Online Business Booster. For an investment of just £299 you get my eyes on your business and I’ll help you get to your goals faster with:

•  a 1 hour audit
• a 1 hour intensive Zoom call
• an Action Plan shaped specifically for your business
• a follow-up support call 1 week later

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’m here to help you take your marketing to the next level.

Why 10 Days?

2022 is the 10^th anniversary of The Yorkshire Marketing Company. So to celebrate we’re creating a series of monthly blogs giving you inspirational and educational tips and advice on how to boost your online product business, and they’re all centred around the number 10!

If you don’t want to miss out, join our mailing list and I’ll make sure they head over to your inbox every month.

Our emails are always designed to help and inspire you, so don’t worry we won’t be spamming you, we’re too busy for that! However, if you do feel you don’t want to receive them anymore, you can unsubscribe with the click of a button. But we do hope you’ll stick around because we love to help small businesses just like you!

Happy marketing folks!

Rachelle x