The 8 steps

Rolling out

This page describes the strategy workspace, which is being rolled out now.

#	Step	The question	What you end up with
1	Your business	What do you sell, and where?	Your offers and prices, the areas you serve and the channels you use.
2	Your competitors	Who else do customers compare you with?	At least 3 competitors with a short note each, plus your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
3	Your customers	Who buys from you most?	1 to 3 customer groups, each with one typical customer: what they want done, what bothers them, what they hope to gain.
4	What makes you different	What do you promise that others don't?	One-line promise and 3 proofs.
5	Your goal	What should marketing bring you?	A number, a unit (leads, calls, bookings, sales, visits, followers or messages), a date, and why that number.
6	Your budget	How much can you spend each month?	Monthly budget, weekly cap, the split per platform, and an estimate of what it can buy.
7	Your plan	What will you publish and promote in the first month?	Your offer in detail, what each platform does at each stage of the customer journey, and a week-by-week outline of the first month.
8	Check & approve	Check every guess, then approve.	A locked, approved version.

Why each step matters

1. Your ads and posts should name the same offers and places your customers already know.
2. Knowing the nearby alternatives shows where you can stand out.
3. Ads cost less and convert more when they speak to one group at a time.
4. One clear promise makes every ad and post say the same thing.
5. A number and a date tell you later whether the plan worked.
6. The split decides where the money goes, and the range shows what that money can buy.
7. A first month you can actually do beats a perfect plan you never start.
8. Approval locks this version and finishes the strategy part of your launch.

Finding competitors

In step 2 you can Search Google Maps for businesses like yours nearby. Each result shows where it came from. You can always add a competitor yourself by name or link. If the search is not available, the step says so and you add competitors yourself.

The weekly cap

The weekly cap in step 6 is the most Spark may spend on your ads in any one week. Your approved strategy is the one place this number lives.

Learn more: the professional terms

Step 1 is the situation analysis; step 2 a competitor analysis and SWOT; step 3 segmentation and targeting (STP) with personas and jobs-to-be-done; step 4 a positioning statement and value proposition; step 5 a SMART goal; step 7 the marketing mix (4Ps for products, 7Ps for services) and the funnel (awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty) with a KPI per stage. See Marketing terms explained.