What is strategy and why is it important in your business?
I often emphasize the importance of planning, goal setting, and making strategic decisions within your business.
What might seem like unnecessary or tedious steps to some, are actually the foundational building blocks of a sustainable, successful business – one that grows in the intended direction and which aligns with the life you envision for yourself.
The best time to invest in this strategy? Now! While it’s never too late, the sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll feel confident in how you approach your marketing.
Rather than aimless posting, sporadic emails, or forgotten (and therefore neglected) social media accounts, you’ll have a focused, realistic plan with clear deliverables, actionable steps, and relevant tactics to support your business.
What is a marketing strategy (and how does it differ from marketing tactics)?
A marketing strategy is a long-term, customized plan, built to help your business achieve specific goals.
This strategy should be created based on a clear understanding and analysis of both internal and external business factors including your target market, socio-economic conditions, sales, customer data, competition, available resources, and industry landscape.
From this overarching and comprehensive analysis, comes a strategy which emphasizes the big picture of ‘what’ and ‘why’ rather than ‘how.’
This strategy is meant to align your efforts with your goals – directing you to where you want to go.
Marketing tactics on the other hand (a term often used interchangeably, but incorrectly, with ‘strategy’), are the specific actions taken to execute your strategy. These tactics are informed by your strategy, and tailored to those same internal and external factors.
For example, a marketing strategy might identify the need for a particular social media campaign to boost engagement, or a blog series focused on a specific theme to position yourself as an industry leader.
The associated tactics would be the specific steps you need to take to bring that strategy to life – creating a content schedule, drafting X number social media posts, choosing keywords, or writing, editing, and publishing X number of blogs.
The importance of a strategic approach
Thoughtful planning and intentional strategy building matter.
They support,
Alignment with business goals
A strategic approach allows your marketing efforts to directly support broader business objectives, such as increasing revenue or brand awareness. If you’re aware of big picture business goals, you can work backwards – identifying the steps needed to align your marketing initiatives with these objectives.
Efficient use of resources
A comprehensive strategy helps to prevent wasted time, money, and other resources by focusing on the marketing or business activities that will have the greatest impact. Your strategy can help ensure that every action you take serves a purpose and drives meaningful results for your business.
Consistency across channels
When all of your content flows through one strategic, focused lens, you’re able to maintain a unified message across all channels. This consistency can help improve brand recognition and trust with your audience and prospective clients.
Measurability
A clear strategy with thoughtful goals makes it easier for you to track success. As you create your unique strategy, you’ll consider what it is you’re hoping to achieve (for example increased sales or stronger brand awareness) as well as how you’ll measure that success. You’ll consider the metrics that are most important to you, and will set specific, realistic goals.
As your campaign progresses, you can measure the ROI (return on investment) of your efforts by measuring your results against your selected stats or metrics. As you collect this data, you can continue to adjust your plans or shift your strategy based on the information received.
Consequences of not having a strategy
Ineffective campaigns
Random tactics without strategy often fail to deliver results, resulting in wasted time and resources. A review of past data, the current market, audience feedback, and your available resources can help you develop a thoughtful plan that is likely to deliver targeted results. Otherwise, you’re essentially throwing spaghetti (your tactics, timelines, and content) at the wall and hoping it sticks.
Confusion among team members
A lack of clear direction can lead to misaligned efforts among team members who each have their own perception of what is expected of them, or what they’re working towards.
A comprehensive strategy eliminates this confusion by providing a unified roadmap that outlines:
Overarching goals and direction
The specific tactics to be utilized and steps to be completed (and their priority level)
Clear individual and team responsibilities
Timelines and deadlines
Key metrics for success
With everyone on the same page, communication becomes more efficient, efforts become aligned, and workflows are streamlined, maximizing productivity.
Missed opportunities
Without strategy, people tend to approach their marketing reactively (rather than proactively).
Inspiration strikes and you dive in headfirst without testing the viability of the idea. You see a competitor launching something and feel the pressure to do so as well, without first assessing if it’s aligned with your unique business, clientele, and goals.
Consider this scenario:
Inspiration strikes at a coffee shop and you decide to host a webinar the following month. You finalize the presentation and send an email to your list. You’re feeling productive and excited! A week goes by and you forget to remind your audience about it. Oh, well, there’s still time. You post about it on Instagram. Suddenly it’s the week of the webinar and you realize you have no sign-ups. Now you’re at a crossroads: scramble to promote it last-minute, or cancel altogether?
Either way, the webinar will likely not have the results you desired (P.S. What were your expectations? Were they even realistic?). The outcome is disappointing and you’re left feeling defeated.
But why? Was it a lack of communication? Did your audience miss those few emails and social media posts? Or was the webinar topic simply not interesting to them? Was the price too high? Maybe they wanted to attend, but the date and time didn’t work for them? Maybe a PDF with the same information would have been more appealing than a webinar?
Without a strategy, you’re left guessing.
A thoughtful, intentional approach to this same webinar could have provided clarity and direction. Based on market research, customer needs, audience feedback, and economic conditions, you might have made different decisions.
With a different promotional timeline or marketing strategy, the webinar may have yielded better results.
What opportunities might you be missing, by overlooking the importance of strategy and planning?
Key components of a marketing strategy
I would love to work with you to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that focuses your efforts on the tactics that make sense for your business.
However, I also know that not all business owners are ready to invest in support. If you’re looking to tackle your own marketing strategy, be sure to review and consider these key areas.
1. Understand your target market.
Do you know the difference between your target market, audience, and ideal clients?
Especially at the beginning of your business, it’s hard to pass up an opportunity to make money. As such, many business owners cast a wide net – “I want to help anybody that wants to work with me!”
Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t often work. In fact, one of the eternal laws of marketing is this, “if you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll end up appealing to no one.”
The more targeted your marketing efforts are to a specific audience, the more likely your content will resonate and your offers will address their needs – resulting in conversions.
Take the time to research your customer needs, pain points, interests, behaviours, and preferences. Get to know who you want to reach, and what they care about so you can craft a strategy that speaks to them.
2. Define your outcomes and objectives.
What are you working towards? What are you hoping to achieve with your business? Before launching anything new, establish your desired outcomes and actionable goals (yes, there’s a distinction)!
I like to define desired outcomes as broader milestones you want to reach but don’t have direct control over.
Take a moment to reflect on your own aspirations:
What do you desire for your life and business?
What do you want over the next 6 months to 2 years (short-term outcomes)?
What do you want to achieve in 5 years (long-term outcomes)?
For example, maybe in the long term you dream of being an expert speaker in your industry. Short-term, maybe you desire to be on 10 podcasts this year to establish your credibility and boost brand awareness.
While these things are out of your control, you can craft strategic goals that correlate with these overarching desires. These goals will guide your actions and bring you closer to your outcomes.
For example, you could:
Contact 30 relevant podcasts to pitch yourself as a guest.
Start a YouTube channel and establish a monthly production schedule to boost your authority as a thought leader in your industry.
These should be fully formulated S.M.A.R.T goals to ensure clarity and success.
S.M.A.R.T goals are:
Specific: Your goal should be clear and precise, with well-defined objectives describing what you want to achieve. What do you want to accomplish? Why is this important?
Measurable: Your goal needs to have criteria to track progress and measure success. How will you know when the goal is accomplished? What metrics or data will you use to track progress?
Attainable: Your goal should challenge you, without being impossible to achieve. It needs to be realistic based on the available resources, skills, and constraints. What steps or resources are required to achieve the goal? Do you have control over the outcome?
Relevant: The goal should align with your personal or business objectives and be connected to a desired outcome or value. Does the goal align with your long-term plans? Is now the right time? Does it add to your overall mission?
Timely: The goal needs a defined timeframe so you can prioritize the work required. Deadlines provide focus and create urgency. What is your deadline? Are there interim milestones? What happens if progress is delayed? Does this timing align with your other priorities?
Even if you don’t achieve the desired outcome, if you carried out these clear and strategic goals, you likely moved the needle on it in a significant way.
Along the way, you can refine your actions, or reimagine your outcomes, based on accumulated data or changes in desires.
3. Understand the market and your competition
What’s happening in your market? How might this impact your business?
Take the time to review general industry patterns, developments, and demand, so you can make informed decisions about your business and marketing goals.
Included in this analysis should be a review of your competitors so you can glean insights based on what they’re doing well (so you can find marketplace gaps or gather inspiration without copying) and what’s performing poorly (so you can avoid making these same mistakes).
4. Establish clear and compelling messaging
Your messaging is key for how you communicate with your audience – and how likely they are to listen to you. Clear and compelling messaging can help your business stand out within a crowded marketplace, developing a strong and unique brand.
How do you want to be known? How do you want your audience to talk about you?
Throughout any given campaign, your messaging should be consistent, focused on:
Addressing the specific pain points, challenges and/or desires of your target audience.
Using language and content that connects with this audience (have you established a unique brand voice, tone, and style?).
A specific goal, purpose, or objective.
How can you speak to the needs of your audience in ways that will resonate? What will capture their attention and drive your intended action? What are the key messages you’re trying to communicate?
When messaging is clear and consistent it can build trust and strengthen connection with your audience, increasing the likelihood you’ll achieve your established business goals.
5. Select channels that reach your target audience
Knowing your audience’s behaviours, desires, demographics, and needs allows you to create a focused marketing plan which prioritizes the channels that are most likely to reach them.
Where is your audience hanging out? Consider the platforms themselves, as well as the kind of content your audience prefers consuming, and the times at which they’re likely to be online and engaged.
Targeted tactics can help avoid wasted time and resources, allowing you to focus on the activities that are going to drive results.
6. Set KPIs to measure progress
Based on your established goals, what KPIs (key performance indicators) make sense to track? What metrics will indicate forward progress and ultimately success?
Opting for marketing tactics that are inherently measurable can be helpful for ease of analysis.
For example,
A sent email can be evaluated in terms of its open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribes
An Instagram post can be evaluated in terms of likes and comments, direct messages, or new followers
A YouTube video can be evaluated in terms of view count, comments, or new subscribers.
Other valuable metrics might be sales, website page visits, calls booked, or form submissions.
As your campaign progresses, you can monitor these results, and refine tactics or timelines as needed based on the collected data.
Embrace flexibility and iteration
Building a comprehensive marketing strategy can do wonders for saving time, maximizing ROI, and achieving business goals.
This strategy doesn’t need to be overwhelming, it just needs to be intentional – linking your goals with aligned actions.
Not every tactic will work. Not every campaign will be a massive success. That’s the unfortunate reality of being a business owner in an ever-shifting digital landscape.
But the more you’re able to define your audience, clarify your desired outcomes, establish clear goals, and refine your messaging, the more confident you’ll become in your efforts and decisions.
What’s one small action you can take today to bring you closer to your marketing goals?
If you need help navigating these questions, weeding through business and marketing ideas, or formulating a sustainable strategy that will drive success in your business this year, let’s chat!