Marketing Strategy vs. Tactics

 

I often hear talk about the pros and cons of different graphic design or marketing automation software. Marketers also talk a lot about the mechanics of Meta ads and the pros and cons of using Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Then there are the decisions about images, colors, subject lines and copy. While all of this is important and can make a significant difference in the effectiveness of a marketing campaign, fewer marketers first step back to thoughtfully develop the marketing objectives and strategies that these tactics will support. Here are some of the things that must be considered first:

• Who are our primary and secondary target customers? Do we understand their motivations and behaviors well enough?
• What is the unique value proposition that we communicating to them?
• Is our product or brand differentiated enough from competitive offerings?
• What is the target customer's awareness of our product or brand?
• Is our brand even in the target customer's consideration set?
• Are our customers emotionally attached to our brand? Are they loyal to our brand?
• What media do these customers most rely upon?
• Are our product, pricing, packaging and distribution strategies optimized and aligned with our brand's positioning?
• How convenient is it for customers to find and purchase our products?
• Does our product or brand deliver a good or outstanding value to the target customer?
• How are we selling our products? What is our sales process? Is it working?
• What sales barriers do we have to overcome? What concerns do we need to address?
• How many leads are we generating?
• How successful are we at converting those leads into sales?
• What seems to be working?
• What is not working as well?
• What is the broadest marketing "toolkit" that we could potentially apply to promoting our brand and its products? Which of these tools have the potential to deliver the highest ROI?

This is just a small list of strategic considerations upon which the marketer should build a marketing plan. Some have said that a poorly defined strategy executed well will achieve better results than a well defined strategy executed poorly. Clearly the goal is to have both - a well defined strategy supported by outstanding execution. I would admonish you to complete both the strategic work and the tactical work when developing marketing plans and campaigns. 

Get the Brand Message Right

I have worked with clients who are totally focused on the media plan or the social media tactics or on which marketing communication vehicles to use and what the spend should be for each of them. But they completely neglect the brand message. 

Admittedly, marketers must carefully choose their brands' target markets and then identify communication vehicles that can reach those markets with the greatest effectiveness and efficiency. And admittedly, most of the impact of brand communication is on building brand awareness, not changing brand perceptions.

But having admitted to both of these, I contend that the most strategic part of what is largely a series of tactical marketing exercises is choosing the right message - one that reinforces the brand's unique value proposition. The message needs to be emotionally compelling, unique and believable for the brand.

I find that more often than not, true marketers get this. But people who have come from operations, engineering, finance or even general management backgrounds (or new, inexperienced marketers) often default to the tactical decisions while paying little to no attention to the message itself. Or sometimes, they decide that the message should be some gimmick (e.g. a celebrity endorsement), or worse yet, a giveaway or a price discount.

I have had marketing decision makers tell me that they don't have the time to determine what the optimal brand message should be. Maybe next time. 

You are wasting your marketing communication spending if you are not using the marketing communication vehicles to convey the right message. Before you jump into the weeds of the marketing communication tactics, step back and make sure you have the right message to communicate.