How to Create a Product Marketing Strategy

What Is a Product Marketing Strategy?

A product marketing strategy is a structured plan that defines how a business will promote a product. To help sell it more successfully.

The idea is to compile key information about the product’s:

• Target audience
• Unique selling propositions
• Market environment

And use this information to determine the right marketing approach. 

Generally, you should decide how to market your product after developing your product concept (so you have a foundation of knowledge and research to build upon). And before your product launch (so you can get off to the best possible start).

But you can also create a strategy for your current offerings. If you want to start taking a more tactical approach to product marketing.

7 Steps to Creating a Product Marketing Strategy

Learn how to create a strategy that can help you reach your sales goals:

1. Create Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are profiles that represent different types of potential customers.

They help you understand target audience segments (which you may have identified in the product development stage). So you can reach and engage them more effectively.

Let’s say you’re launching a coffee subscription business.

Based on research you’ve done, you might create a persona to represent busy urban professionals in their 30s who enjoy starting their day with a good cup of coffee.

Like this:

The information in the persona helps you:

• Tailor your messaging and other campaign elements to relevant audiences
• Leverage audience targeting features on digital advertising platforms
• Effectively analyze audience data from future campaigns

So, marketing a product becomes much easier.

If you need help researching your target audience, use Semrush’s One2Target tool. Which tells you about the people who visit your competitors’ websites.

Just enter your target location and rival domains. Then, review the charts in three reports: 

• Demographics: Age, gender, and distribution by country
• Socioeconomics: Household size, household income level, employment status, and education level
• Behavior: Social media preferences, interests, and device types used

Here’s a snapshot of results for five coffee subscription sites: 

2. Understand Buying Journeys

The buying journey refers to the steps a customer takes on their way to purchasing your product. 

Understanding this journey better equips you to reach and engage prospects at each stage. Ensuring more people ultimately make a purchase.

The three main stages are described below:

You can get valuable insight into buying journeys with the Traffic Analytics tool.

It shows where competing websites get their visitors from—and where those visitors go afterward.

For example, here’s one of the charts for Bean Box’s website:

Key takeaways include:

• 11.16% of visitors come from unpaid Google results. This suggests similar companies would benefit from adding search engine optimization (SEO) to their product marketing plans.
• 10.53% of visitors go to “coffeeforums.com” next. So, this could be a good place to promote a coffee subscription service. Or gather insights for your content marketing strategy.

3. Analyze Your Competitors

Analyze your competitors to find out which marketing tactics work for them—and which don’t. So you can get insights for your product marketing strategy.

Semrush’s Market Explorer tool gathers lots of useful data.

Enter your target location and five rival domains to see three key metrics:

• Market consolidation: This measures the spread of traffic market share between players. High consolidation indicates that one competitor dominates the online market.
• Market traffic: The estimated number of visits to all domains in your analyzed month (noted at the top). This helps you gauge online demand for your product.
• Serviceable available market: The number of potential customers who are ready to buy a product from your business category. In other words, the size of your target audience.

Next, scroll down to the “Domain vs Market Dynamics” section.

The “Share of Visits” chart shows each domain’s traffic share. And can help you decide which competitors to focus on most.

And the “Total Traffic Trends” chart shows how market traffic has changed over time. To help you understand seasonality or other trends in your niche.

Last but not least, look at the “Traffic Distribution” chart to see which channels drive the most traffic.

• Direct: Users typing in the URL, opening a bookmark, etc. A high portion of direct traffic suggests strong brand loyalty within your audience. So, this is something you might want to focus on in your future marketing strategy.
• Referral: Link clicks from other websites. If referral traffic is high in your market, you might want to focus on tactics like digital PR, link building, and affiliate marketing.
• Organic search: Unpaid visits from search engines like Google. You can use the Organic Research tool to learn more about competitors’ organic search performance.
• Paid search: Visits from search engine ads. You can use the Advertising Research tool to learn more about competitors’ paid search performance.
• Organic social: Unpaid visits from social media platforms. Effective social media management is key to earning more traffic through this channel.
• Paid social: Visits from social media ads. You can use the AdClarity app for insight into competitors’ strategies and results.
• Email: Clicks on email links. If competitors have a significant amount of email traffic, it suggests that they invest in strong email marketing campaigns.
• Display ads: Clicks on display advertisements. You can use the AdClarity app for insight into competitors’ strategies and results.

4. Identify Unique Selling Propositions

Unique selling propositions (USPs) are key differentiators that make your product better than rival products.

Communicating USPs is key to standing out. Particularly in crowded markets.

Here are some example USPs for a coffee subscription service:

• Zero-waste coffee experience. 100% compostable or reusable packaging. And a buy-back program for used grounds to be repurposed into eco-friendly products like soaps or compost.
• Coffee sommelier. Customers can have a virtual consultation with a certified coffee expert to get personalized recommendations based on their brewing methods and taste preferences.
• Coffee pairings. Gourmet snacks, pastries, or chocolates are paired with the subscriber's selected coffee blends, enhancing the tasting experience.

To define strong USPs, consider what your target audience wants. (Using your buyer personas.) And look for gaps in your competitors’ offerings.

Also, avoid vague statements. For example, instead of saying “eco-friendly coffee” say “ethically sourced coffee grown using sustainable farming practices, delivered in 100% compostable packaging. And we offset carbon emissions for every shipment.”

Specificity will make your messaging more impactful.

5. Define Your Focal Message and Marketing Mix

Next, define the focal message for your product marketing strategy. This should resonate with your target audience and differentiate you from competitors.

For example, many coffee subscription services focus on the message “our coffee tastes the best.” We could stand out with a core message like “our coffee empowers farmers and communities.”

Your focal message will serve as a guiding principle for your marketing mix, which consists of four key elements (also known as the four Ps of marketing):

1. Product: What you’re selling, including its features and packaging
2. Price: How much you charge for the product
3. Place: Where and how the product is distributed and made available to customers
4. Promotion: How and where you communicate with your target market about the product

To develop an effective marketing mix, you must consider your strategy and use all the research you’ve conducted so far. This includes research you conducted during the product development stage.

But, you also need to think practically. The ideal mix isn’t always feasible, so consider the resources (money, skills, time, and tools) available to you.

To illustrate, here’s a quick summary of a potential marketing mix for a coffee subscription business:

6. Plan and Create Content

Now you’re ready to plan and create content in line with your marketing mix.

• If you’re launching a new product, you’ll need to start with your go-to-market (GTM) content. This is content that teases and/or introduces your product to the market.
• If you’re promoting an active product, focus on improving or removing existing content before creating new content. To ensure you have a good foundation to build on.

Either way, one of the most important aspects is the landing page. This is the main webpage that informs visitors about your product—and convinces them to buy.

Here’s an example from Mistobox:

You might also want to create supporting website content, such as:

• How-to guides
• Product FAQs
• SEO-friendly blog posts

This content allows you to reach and engage prospects in different ways. And helps onsite visitors get the information they need (meaning they’re more likely to ultimately make a purchase).

You’ll also need to prepare for other marketing efforts, which may include:

• Social media marketing 
• Email marketing
• Digital PR
• Digital advertising

7. Execute Your Strategy and Keep Adapting

At this stage, you’re ready to put your strategy and product marketing best practices into action.

Monitor marketing metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, and social media engagement. So you can invest more in the tactics that work—and pivot from those that don’t. 

(Just remember that it can take time for your product marketing to build momentum and translate into sales.)

You may also need to adapt your product marketing strategy based on other factors, such as:

• Market changes: Shifts in customer preferences, emerging trends, or economic conditions
• Competitive dynamics: New competitors, aggressive competitor actions, or loss of market share
• Product lifecycle stage: Moving through introduction, growth, maturity, or decline phases
• Technological advancements: The availability of new solutions to you or your audience
• Customer feedback and data: Negative feedback, declining satisfaction, or changing sales patterns
• Regulatory and legal changes: New regulations or compliance considerations
• Internal business changes: Leadership shifts, resource reallocation, or product updates/rebranding
• Global events: Impact from pandemics, political/social movements, etc.

One good way to monitor your market is with the EyeOn tool.

It shows you when competitors publish Google ads, blog posts, webpages, and social media posts. And makes it easy to check their content out.

So, you can quickly identify any notable changes. And get inspiration from them.

Gather Insights for Your Product Marketing Strategy

Semrush .Trends tools provide valuable data you can use for your product marketing strategy. To save time and make better decisions.

Claim your free trial to:

• Analyze competitors’ web traffic with Traffic Analytics
• Discover audience demographics, socioeconomics, and behaviors with One2Target
• Understand your online market with Market Explorer
• Monitor competitors’ marketing activities with EyeOn