 A Tactic Ain't A Strategy
Clearly-defined goals enable strategies that work
Jeff Perkins, customer marketing manager for Autotrader.com, was speaking at a recent online marketing event, when he received an interesting question from an audience member.
"What's your Twitter strategy?" he was asked.
Without even blinking, he responded, "I don't have a Twitter strategy."
A collective gasp could be heard in the room. In this era of social media, how could any self-respecting marketer not have a Twitter strategy? So, after appearing to lose all of his marketing "street cred" with the people in the room, he continued.
"We have a strategy," he said. "And Twitter is just one of many ways that we execute on our strategy."
Then there was a collective nodding of heads in the room, as people realized his point: Twitter is a tactic, not a strategy.
When it comes to promoting your product or service, success depends on having a clearly-defined goal, and both a sound strategy and a viable tactical plan to support that strategy. Without these, your marketing efforts invariably end-up wasting time and resources.
Strategy is your high-level plan — a broad-stroke outline of what you're intending to do in order to achieve your goal — and tactics are the individual steps or maneuvers that you'll employ to implement your strategy. And in too many small businesses (and more than a few large ones), these terms are often thrown-around interchangeably. Your marketing strategy must drive your tactics, not the other way around.
For example, let's say you're a retailer or a consumer service provider, looking to generate leads… You might run an ad in your local newspaper, which results in a few walk-ins or phone calls. You've just executed a tactic, but without a well-defined strategy, your efforts will be far less successful than they should be. To look at it more closely, let's assume that your goal is generation of qualified leads, and your your strategy is to alert as many potential customers as possible to your product or service offering. You might want to employ several different tactics to achieve that goal:
- Schedule a special event at your business, where you will provide something unusual or informative that would appeal to your prospective customers
- Once you've planned your event, you push-out a press release announcing the event to your local newspapers
- Send postcards announcing the event to households in your community
- Send email announcements to your house list and/or to purchased lists
- Tweet your event announcement to your Twitter followers
- Set-up a Facebook page for your business, and create an Event that can be shared with your Facebook friends
- If your budget permits, advertise on local or web radio or cable, choosing relevant programs whose audience would include your target customers
- Join a local professional society in the months prior to your event, and start building relationships with your peers within the business community
- Send personal letters to professionals in your area who might become part of your referral network
- Send personal letters to civic organizations announcing your event, for inclusion in their newsletter or events calendar
- Join your local Chamber of Commerce, and participate in a meeting or three prior to your event… Get to know the movers and shakers within your community, and announce your event at Chamber meetings and through other vehicles they might have (i.e. newsletters, website, etc.)
As you can see, the tactical opportunities are limitless, and all support your strategy of building awareness of your company and its product or service. Some require more planning and preparation, and others must be implemented far enough in advance (i.e. PR, newsletters, joining the Chamber and attending meetings, etc.) in order to be effective. This also highlight why a specific tactic might work for one type of business, but not for another. Your marketing strategy look at your market(s), your competitors, and your prospective customers, and from that, must direct your tactics, in support of a clearly-defined goal.
Any number of strategies can be used to achieve a business goal. In fact, it often takes more than one strategy to achieve a lofty goal, and each strategy will require its own tactical plan. Unfortunately, a lot of marketing managers simply throw together a list of the tactics they've always used, and call it a strategy.
Sometimes you can build a hell of a strategy around a simple, tactical idea. Take, for instance, Domino's Pizza, and what they did with their original, "30-minute delivery guarantee". Someone said, "Hey, what if we guaranteed 30-minute delivery?" and a strategy was born. They knew that they simply couldn't compete on product quality, but they could compete on speedy delivery. After that, their entire operation revolved around the promise of 30-minute delivery. Recently, though, in their ongoing war with rival pizza conglamorate Papa John's, they revised their strategy to compete also on product quality, and a rash of TV and web commercials were the tactics employed to support this newly-defined strategy. If you watch even a little TV, you've probably seen the ads. In it, Domino's chefs are experimenting with a matrix of combinations of cheese, dough and spices — anything to counter some of the negative criticism that's come their way. To underscore, Domino's reads some actual quotes from customers — quotes that because of their critical nature — that elicit more than a little surprise in the viewer: "Domino's pizza crust, to me, is like cardboard." And "The sauce tastes like ketchup." Not really the kind of things to which you'd expect to see a company call attention.
Domino's goes on to explain that they've reinvented their pizza — they've thrown out their old rule book and made something completely new. They're actually trashing their own product. They demonstrate that they have actually listened to thier customers, and made significant changes, based on consumer feedback. "The Domino's campaign is brilliant," says David N. Finley, director of communications at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. "First of all, it captured my attention — no small feat in today's media-saturated world. Second, it's honest, sincere and novel, and it's also very funny." He adds, "As a consumer, I can relate to the message — I understand the criticism about Domino's product, which to me has traditionally been a bland, low-quality product. To reinvent themselves, it's necessary to address their poor image head-on, so they can then give credibility to their proposed change — in this case, the new recipe. I'm not sure yet whether this campaign is working, but I predict it will be a success."
A profound shift in strategy, supported by high-visibility tactics that included a Superbowl commercial launch, and an ongoing media campaign.
In the world of B2B marketing, the principles are the same. It's just the tactics that change. And with the advent of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., the distinctions between consumer and B2B marketing are beginning to blur. But at the end of the day, you still need a clearly-defined goal, a well-considered strategy, and a tactical plan that supports that strategy. Your strategy is what determines who you're trying to pitch your message to, which tactics will enable you to best communicate that message, and what specific "action" you want your prospective customers to take. The tactics are the method you use to achieve your purpose. Together, strategy and tactics put you in control of your promotion and your destiny.
Got a tip you'd like to share, or maybe a question about any of the ideas presented here? Feel free to drop me a line at david.orban@oydesign.com.
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