Closing the Gaps: How to build a Marketing Strategy that works
Every business has them, the gaps. The spaces between what the business wants to achieve and what its marketing is actually doing.
They creep in quietly. A campaign launches without sales knowing, data sits in silos, and conversations about growth happen in different rooms. Before long, everyone’s doing their job well, but the business still isn’t moving forward in a joined-up way.
These are what I refer to as the 7 Strategic Marketing Gaps, the most common weak spots that stop marketing from driving real business results. The good news? Once you can see them, you can fix them.
Below are the seven most common gaps I see when I step into a business, what they look like, why they matter, and how to start closing them.
1: The Strategic Planning Gap
The business wants to grow but hasn’t mapped out how. Targets might exist on paper, but there’s no clear route to reach them. In some cases, there aren’t any goals at all, or they’re so vague they don’t mean much. Marketing and sales are working hard, just not always in the same direction.
If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, you can’t build a strategy to get there. Without direction, activity gets scattered, budgets get wasted, and everyone ends up busy rather than effective.
Start with clear, realistic goals that mean something to the business. Then build your marketing backwards from those goals. Every campaign, post, or project should link directly to what the business is trying to achieve.
2: The Proposition Gap
The business struggles to clearly explain what it does, who it helps, and why anyone should choose it. Messaging often ends up generic or inward-looking, full of what you think matters, not what clients actually care about.
If you can’t clearly explain what makes you relevant, neither can your team or your customers. Confusion costs sales, and when everyone sounds the same, buyers default to price.
Talk to your best clients. Find out why they actually chose you, it’s often not what you think. Then build your message and positioning around what they value most, not what you assume matters.
3: The Promise vs Reality Gap
Marketing paints one picture, but the client experience tells another story. Promises made in campaigns or pitches aren’t always delivered in practice, creating frustration and damaging trust.
When your marketing says one thing and the experience delivers another, trust erodes fast. It’s not just a reputation issue, it directly affects retention and referrals.
Be brutally honest about what you promise and what you deliver. Audit every touchpoint, website, emails, proposals, client onboarding, and make sure they all tell the same story.
4: The Commercial Data Gap
The business has data sitting in systems, CRM, finance, client records, but isn’t using it properly. Decisions get made on gut feel instead of facts, and no one’s fully sure which marketing activities are really paying off.
Without the right data, you’re guessing, and guesswork is expensive. You can’t improve what you don’t measure, and you can’t prove value if you’re not tracking the right things.
Make sure you’re collecting and reviewing three key data sets, pipeline, client, and product or service performance. Use that insight to guide decisions and cut what isn’t delivering.
5: The Pipeline Gap
Sales, business development and marketing all want the same outcome, more good clients, but they rarely plan or measure together. Leads get passed across with little feedback, and valuable insight falls through the cracks.
When sales and marketing don’t talk, good leads get lost, follow-up slips, and the feedback loop breaks. The result is frustration on both sides and a slower, weaker pipeline.
Get everyone on the same page. Define what a “good lead” actually looks like, share performance data, and meet regularly to review progress. The pipeline should belong to both sales and marketing, not one or the other.
6: The Client Focus Gap
Most of the energy goes into chasing new clients, while existing ones are left to tick over. There’s no structured plan for retention or growth, and opportunities to deepen relationships are missed.
Focusing only on new business means missing easier wins. Retaining and growing existing clients is cheaper, faster, and often more profitable, yet it rarely gets the same attention.
Treat retention as part of your marketing plan. Build regular check-ins, feedback loops, and upsell opportunities into your process. Keep showing clients why they were right to choose you.
7: The Board vs Commercial Gap
The leadership team might have a clear vision, but it doesn’t always filter down. Departments set their own priorities, communication gets patchy, and marketing ends up working in isolation from the bigger picture.
If the business direction isn’t clearly shared, teams can very easily pull in different directions. Marketing ends up disconnected from strategy, and effort goes to waste, without them even knowing.
Make communication part of the process, not an afterthought. Translate board-level goals into clear commercial priorities, and make sure every team understands how their work supports them.
Plugging the Gaps
Spotting the gaps is one thing, but closing them takes structure. You need a way to connect business goals with marketing actions and to make sure everyone understands what success actually looks like.
The questions below are the starting point for that process. They help you test what’s missing, set direction, and build a strategy that hopefully holds together in the real world.
The Key Questions Every Marketing Strategy Should Answer:
What are your Business Goals? (What are you trying to achieve and what does success look like?)
Start by getting clear on this. If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, you’ll waste time and money chasing the wrong things. Decide whether you want growth, better clients, wider awareness, or something else, and be honest about what success actually looks like.
Most confusion starts here. If the board, sales, and marketing aren’t working towards the same thing, everyone ends up busy but not effective. Clarity closes that gap and gives marketing a clear job to do.
Who are your Ideal Clients? (Who/What do you really want more of?)
Not every client is a good one. Focus on the people who value what you do, pay properly and on time, and stick around. Knowing who they are, and what matters to them, makes everything else easier.
This is where a lot of businesses trip up. They go after anyone with a budget and wonder why the work feels hard or unprofitable. When everyone agrees on what a “good” client looks like, marketing and sales stop pulling in different directions.
What is your “Value Proposition” and how is it communicated (and delivered)? (Why you, What do you stand for, and how do you show it?)
Your value proposition is what you deliver that genuinely matters to clients. Your message is how you talk about it and prove it.
Ask clients why they chose you and what keeps them loyal. Their answers will tell you what really matters and show where your current positioning and communications might be off.
Then make sure your message and your delivery, from the website to how you talk in meetings, lines up with the real experience of working with you. Your brand isn’t just what you say; it’s what you do. Every bit of the client experience, your service, your product, your people, delivers it. If what you promise and what you deliver don’t match, trust disappears fast and so might your clients!
Where to Focus? (What’s going to make the biggest impact/difference?)
It could be winning new business, keeping existing clients, building partnerships, or growing referrals. It might be a mix of a few, but it can’t be everything for everyone. That never works.
Knowing where to focus turns strategy into progress. When you’re clear on what really matters, you stop spreading yourself too thin and put effort where it actually counts.
Via what channels? (How will you reach the right people?)
Go where your clients already spend their time. Choose what makes sense for them, not what everyone else is shouting about.
You don’t need to be everywhere. Doing a few things properly, consistently, will always outperform trying to do it all. When your channels line up with how your clients buy and how your sales team works, the whole process starts to feel smoother.
How will you measure it? (How will you know if it’s working?)
Decide what good looks like before you start. Track things that matter: quality enquiries, conversion rates, retention, and reputation.
Forget vanity metrics. The right numbers help you make better decisions, not just fill reports. When everyone can see what’s working and what isn’t, it keeps the business honest and focused.
How will you resource it? (How will you actually make it happen in terms of budget and people?)
Be realistic about time, skills, and budget. Who’s doing what? Can it actually be done with the team and resources you’ve got?
A smaller plan that happens is worth far more than a big one that doesn’t. This is where a lot of strategies fall over, great thinking, no delivery. Being honest about what’s possible means you’ll make steady progress and keep the promises you’ve made to clients.
Every business has marketing gaps. The trick is not to panic about them, but to notice them and start closing them one by one (start at the top with your business goals!)
Most gaps don’t come from a lack of effort, they come from a lack of alignment, between goals and actions, between message and delivery, between sales and marketing, between what the board expects and what teams are resourced to do. When those parts start working together, the impact is immediate.
A strong strategy doesn’t just fill the gaps, it stops new ones from opening. It keeps everyone focused on the same goals, builds consistency across every channel, and helps you invest time and budget where it actually matters.
And that’s the point. Good marketing isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing what works, for the right reasons, in the right order. When you’ve got that clarity, decisions get easier, teams pull in the same direction, and results become much more predictable instead of accidental.
If you can answer the key questions above, you’ve already started to fill those gaps. You’ll know what you’re aiming for, who you want more of, what to say to them, and how to deliver it consistently. You’ll have a plan that connects ambition with action and turns marketing from a list of activities into a driver of real business growth.
That’s when marketing stops being a cost and starts being part of the engine that help moves the business forward.