What Is Strategy? Digging Deeper.
Caid Christiansen•There are many ways to think about strategy.
In past blogs, we’ve talked about marketing strategies as a series of needs, wants, and nice-to-haves. That still applies–and those are all things you should know.
But there’s an even simpler way to get at the core of what strategy is about. What is strategy? It’s digging deeper.
It’s asking questions about your business. Not just surface-level questions, though. Questions that are uncomfortable to ask. Questions like, “what does our competition kick our asses at?” and, “what is our value proposition reduced down to one sentence?” Questions you may not have thought about before, and may not even know the answers to at this moment.
Strategy is knowing that it’s not enough to say what your goals are. It’s prioritizing those goals and reducing them down to dead simple steps. It’s recognizing that attaining your marketing goals will take hard work and harder thinking.
It’s knowing that there’s always another level of detail, while not getting bogged down by the small stuff. Could you hand off your final strategy to an intern and trust that they’d be able to understand it? Or, are your strategic marketing goals hidden behind fluffy language and uncertain pathways?
Strategy is digging deeper than you ever have before to understand what makes your business tick, and how you’re going to communicate it to others. It’s making sure you have a good product before even thinking about marketing it to an audience, and having the sense to know when it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Digging deeper also means being able to recognize the best tactics for you after you’ve developed this strategy. Who uses this platform or medium? What makes this method of advertising better than other methods? Is it actually what I need, or am I chasing shiny objects?
Digging deeper is not all that encompasses a marketing strategy. But adopting a mindset of digging deeper when you set out to build a foundation for your marketing program is an excellent way to make sure you stay focused on the correct goal.
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