Strategy

“Tactics Without Strategy
Is the Noise Before Defeat”

- Sun Tzu

Building an effective strategy is vital for any business. A well thought out plan will allow a company to generate revenue, reinvest in growth, and show evidence of traction to stakeholders and outside parties such as investors, partners, and influencers.

Strategy development begins with a clear understanding of the business's current position, short-term goals, long-term goals, and potential exit strategy. Next, is to take a deep dive into the existing customers, markets, and competition to provide an understanding of customer behaviors, journeys, and segmentation. The knowledge developed will be vital in developing four focal points of strategy to be integrated cohesively throughout the marketing efforts. The focal points are Lead Generation, Acquisition, Retention, and Go-To-Market.

Before entertaining our four focal points, though, there is a general process that one needs to go through to develop, deploy, and measure the focal points consisting of Goals, Observe, Formulate, Action, Evaluate.

THE STRATEGIC PROCESS

Goals

The purpose of goal setting is to clarify the vision for marketing. Define the short-term and long-term objectives. Identify the process to complete the objectives. Then disseminate attainable tasks to team members. 

Observe

The intel gathered in the above step will shape the next two steps. In observe, the intent is to review processes, communications, and employee interactions that help or hinder the achievement of the goals. The output from observing will identify a business's marketing strengths, weaknesses, and needs, both internally and externally. 

Formulate

Determine what internal resources can help reach the goals and what external resources are needed. Develop primary approaches, key performance indicators, and then go back and develop alternative strategies. As Helmuth von Moltke, the Elder astutely noted, "no plan survives the first contact."

Action

Structure, resources, and funding should be in place or well underway. If the modified structure still does not support achieving the goals, proceed with caution, or make adjustments. When all is in order, execute the formulated approaches.

Evaluate

Review internal and external issues. Measure performance indicators, measure progress against the planned marketing goals, and if there is no progress, take corrective action.

THE FOCAL POINTS

Lead Generation

The audience no longer wants their attention bought; they want their attention earned, requiring a modification of traditional lead generation strategies.Practical strategies to gain a consumer's attention, present product USPs, and compel them to respond has a rhythm and a process. For almost a hundred years, the evolution of the process has, in some regards, remained the same. 

Acquisition

Acquisition has evolved into a catch-all term in managing the overall customer journey. In the strictest of terms, acquisition focuses on post lead generation efforts. While lead generation and acquisition can many times coincide, they are separate in nature. A solid customer acquisition strategy should be sustainable, targeted, and diversified. A sustainable customer acquisition strategy works over the long run. For example, if you plan to acquire new customers through a blog, you should have the tools and resources in place to ensure content production lives past one or two posts. All consumers are not a company's best customers, and not focusing efforts towards the most profitable audience can result in a waste of finances and resources. Diversifying targeted acquisition strategies creates a balance between risk and reward. If one channel begins to fail, reallocating funds to a new channel, better-performing tactic, or another audience will be manageable.

Retention

Retention strategies are crucial for several reasons, not to mention, new customer acquisition can cost up to 25x more than retaining an existing customer.

Retention strategies should focus on customer experience tactics (UX and UI). Building more productive and meaningful relationships with the most valuable customers is now more vital than ever. While we may have had a happy customer when they were acquired, consumers, marketplaces, and competitors do not stand still and are continually moving forward.

Go-to-market

Go-to-market strategies involve preparing the assets and infrastructure necessary for successful launches of new products or into new channels and demographics.