Strategy Before Tactics

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The title for today’s post captures the single greatest small business marketing mistake I encounter – and I encounter it every single day.

Small business owners fall prey to the marketing idea (tactic) of the week because they have no marketing strategy. If I could change anything about the way small business owners view marketing – that would be it.

By strategy I mean your marketing reason for being and I don’t mean to exchange money for something. Far too many people think “we want to sell lots of stuff to lots of people” is a strategy. What do you want your market to know about you, what do you want them to believe, what do want them to feel, experience, think, when they consider what you are about – that’s what comes from strategy and that’s what gets you out of the price shopper bin.

Create a strategy for your marketing for your business and then put every tactic into making that strategy real.

OK, you want some good strategies?

Dominate a narrow market niche
Package your services like no one else and create a category
Become famous for doing one thing

These are examples of strategic business approaches that can inform every single business/marketing decision you make. I guarantee you that if do this, find your strategy, marketing your business will become a whole lot easier.

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Posted by: John Jantsch on Feb 22, 06 | 4:04 am
Category: Vision | Tags:

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M. Bruce Abbott

Ditto the comment above mentioning the radio advertising "not working". We see advertisers hit the airwaves without strategy - they refer to it as branding - we refer to it as a misguided radio campaign. Then when the schedule ends and the advertiser has spent more than they earned, they blame the vehicle (radio, print, etc.).

M. Bruce Abbott
Creative Director/Partner
Radio Lounge
http://www.radioloungeusa.com
Project Clarity » Blog

<pingback>...was heard in commercials and in wake-up calls. John Jantz, writing in the Duct Tape Marketing blog, warns the small businessperson not to be tempted to start employing marketing tactics without ...</pingback>
Kyle

Even though I'm still relatively young, I have realized some important things.

Webmarketing is simple but it is not easy.

I used to just sit on my computer with 20 windows open doing everything and any task at once. With a solid marketing plan, and step by step action, you can reach your goals 10x faster.
Ryan

John (and esteemed company)

I couldn't agree more. I've dealt with numerous clients who want to be the hot item of the moment, even though it fails to align with the strategies they've supposedly held themselves to.

It pains me to see a company move away from everything they believe it, just for the sake of a short-term flash in the pan.

Good call on the 'doing' as that's what often feels like the actual marketing part.

Thanks for the great post. I'll use it in future, no doubt.
Cindy Cooper

Good points. We fall prey to trying tactics because we're frantically doing. Doing feels like progress, whereas thinking might feel like vacation. So it can be hard to take a step back, think big picture and develop a marketing strategy. I agree that a good strategy is absolutely crucial to figuring out where you want to go and how you'll get there (the frantic doing part).

That said, I have a tip for help putting together a strategic plan. A friend of mine developed a great web-based tool called MyStrategicPlan.com. It takes you through the whole process and is designed to be cost-effective for entrepreneurs, small businesses, etc.

We tried the basic online option a year ago and used it to develop our long-term decisions and business and marketing plans - before we had any customers. It guided us along to think through the right questions, and it drilled down from vision/mission/strategy to timelines and tactics. You can do-it-yourself like we did, or opt for consulting.

We're lucky because we like talking about strategy and do it pretty often, but that's not as useful as having the written framework. Going through the full process made us answer questions and research areas we had not thought of. We actually won an award in a business plan competition last year and used chunks of our strategic plan to write the business plan.
Kevin Dervin

Amen Brother John!

I always tell my clients that the lead generation tools and tactics are the easy part. The mistake that almost every small business makes is jumping into "marketing" without any planning or preparation.

They mistake activity and "doing" for marketing and it rarely works out for them. It leads to this syndrome I refer to as episodic marketing. It's the same thing your calling the marketing idea of the week.

And then as Jim suggested, the only logical conclusion that they draw is that those marketing tactics just don't work for a business like theirs.

Gosh forbid that they should ever conclude that maybe it's because they did absolutely no Analysis & Preparation before rushing into it.

Anybody can get great marketing results if they're willing to do the preparation and planning work up front!
Charlie Alter

You are absolutely correct on the need for a marketing strategy before leaping to action with tactics. I ask my clients six questions to start this process of establishing a clear marketing (and sales) strategy:

1. Can you identify the best customers to sell to now and in the future?

2. Do you know what kinds of products and services they want?

3. Can you compare your products to your competitors’ products in terms of price, delivery, key features, and model by model? Can you do the same for the industries and markets you serve?

4. Do you know the specific reasons you are losing orders to competitors for every known lost order in the last year?

5. Do you know if you are making adequate margins on each product line, model and job?

6. Do you know your next market and the opportunities and challenges it represents for your company?
Jim Symcox - Marketing Magicia

Hi John,

We're in illustrious company because Jay Abraham feels exactly the same. At one of his boot camps I attended the first part of the morning was spent talking about how strategy trumps tactics everytime.

I've found exactly the same as you. Business owners try a tactic that they've heard from "someone who's in marketing". Maybe this marketing person implements the tactic for them.

Then the owner usually complain bitterly that telemarketing or direct mail or radio advertising or magazine advertisng don't work!

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