Marketing Strategy 101
Published on March 5, 2025
March 5, 2025Marketing
Published on March 5, 2025
Modern Tactics
I’ve met many business-owners who treated marketing as a furnace for burning money with no clear benefit. In reality, marketing is the engine that drives business growth, but without a clear strategy, your efforts will lack direction and impact.
Marketing has changed drastically. It used to be about catchy slogans and TV commercials, but today, it is a science built on data and relationships. It’s essential that in 2026 we understand that tech is the foundation of how we connect with customers.
This guide updates the classic “Marketing 101” concepts for today’s world. We will look at the crucial difference between having a strategy and having a plan, why the old “funnel” is being replaced by the “flywheel,” and how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and privacy concerns are reshaping the industry.
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is confusing a marketing strategy with a marketing plan. They sound similar, but they serve very different purposes.
Marketing Strategy (The “Why” and “What”): This is your long-term vision. It spans 3 to 5 years and defines your big goals, who your audience is, and why they should pick you over a competitor. It’s about defining the “why” and “what” of your marketing approach. Your strategy shouldn’t change often.
Marketing Plan (The “How” and “When”): This is your roadmap for the next year or quarter. It lists the specific actions you will take—like running social media ads, sending emails, or hosting events—to achieve your strategy. Plans must be flexible so you can adjust them if the market changes.
Think of it this way: If you are going on a trip, your strategy is deciding to move to a new city for a better life. Your plan is booking the moving truck and packing the boxes. You need the strategy to know where you’re going, and the plan to actually get there. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, “a goal without a plan is just a wish”.
For a long time, marketing was defined by the “4 Ps”: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These are still important, but they have evolved.
Before planning your marketing activities, you need to understand where your business currently stands. This involves assessing your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats through a SWOT analysis. Additionally, start by gathering data about your industry, competitors, and target audience. This research will provide valuable insights that inform your marketing decisions and help you identify market opportunities.
You cannot sell to everyone. Don’t try it. If you try to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to no one. The STP model helps you focus.
A “buyer persona” is a fictional character that represents your ideal customer. Develop detailed customer personas that describe your ideal customers’ demographics, behaviors, challenges, and goals. In the past, marketers guessed what these people were like. Now, AI tools can analyze real data to build detailed profiles for you, and to some extent even pretend they’re your target persona.
AI can look at customer interviews, survey results, and sales data to tell you exactly what motivates your customers and what problems they are trying to solve. This takes the guesswork out of the equation.
Marketing to a business (B2B) is different from marketing to a consumer (B2C).
| Aspect | B2B | B2C |
|---|---|---|
| Decision Speed | Longer, involves multiple stakeholders | Faster, often individual |
| Primary Driver | Logic, ROI, long-term relationships | Emotion, convenience, brand image |
| Goal | Build trust and demonstrate value | Capture attention quickly |
The traditional “marketing funnel” is a linear path: a customer becomes aware of you, considers buying, and then makes a purchase. The problem with this model is that it views the purchase as the finish line. It ignores the value of keeping customers happy after they buy.
Modern successful companies use the Flywheel model. Imagine a heavy wheel. It takes effort to start spinning, but once it gets going, it carries its own momentum. In this model, your customers are the energy that spins the wheel.
This approach prioritizes retention. In 2025, keeping a customer is much cheaper than finding a new one.
Content is the fuel that powers your marketing efforts. Develop a content strategy that outlines the types of content you’ll create, the topics you’ll cover, and how you’ll distribute this content across your selected channels. Your content should address your audience’s pain points, answer their questions, and move them closer to making a purchase decision.
Video is taking over. By 2025, short-form videos (like those on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts) will be a primary way people learn about products.
TikTok SEO: People are using TikTok like a search engine. To be found, you need to use the right keywords in your captions, on-screen text, and voiceovers. This helps the algorithm show your video to people searching for topics you cover.
For years, marketers used “cookies” to track users across the internet. Due to privacy laws and changes by companies like Google and Apple, this is going away.
Now, you need First-Party Data. This is information you collect directly from your customers—with their permission—such as email addresses, purchase history, or preferences they share in a quiz. Because you own this data, you don’t have to rely on outside platforms to reach your audience.
AI is not just a buzzword; it is an essential teammate.
A marketing strategy isn’t a “set it and forget it” document—it requires ongoing measurement and optimization. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. In 2025, we move beyond “vanity metrics” like likes and followers to numbers that show real business value.
Identify metrics that align with your marketing objectives and will help you gauge the success of your strategy:
| Metric | Description | Healthy Benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) | Total marketing costs ÷ number of new customers | Varies by industry |
| LTV (Lifetime Value) | Total revenue a customer generates over their relationship | Higher is better |
| LTV:CAC Ratio | Compares customer value to acquisition cost | 3:1 is healthy |
If your LTV:CAC ratio is 1:1, you are losing money. If it’s 5:1, you could probably afford to spend more to grow faster.
Creating a marketing strategy doesn’t have to be intimidating. You can easily build strong foundations for your organization without spending too much time on it. To succeed in marketing today, you need a clear strategy that focuses on the customer. You must adapt to new technologies like AI and video, but never lose sight of the human element.
By shifting from a funnel to a flywheel, you turn your customers into your best advocates, creating a cycle of sustainable growth. Remember that a good marketing strategy evolves over time. Start with these basics, monitor your performance, and refine your approach as you learn more about what resonates with your audience.
Alternatively, I could also develop a marketing strategy for your company.