Whether you’re talking about professional sports or marketing, you need strategy to win. But you also need the tools and the know-how to fuel the strategy. Without the strategy, tools, and know-how, all you have is a random collection of plays and no playbook to hold them together. So, what’s the difference between marketing strategy vs. marketing tactics?
Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Tactics
Strategy is the overarching plan to meet a goal, and tactics are the individual activity keys that help us reach the goal.
Forming a Strategy
To help determine your strategy, start by answering some key questions:
- Who are your target clients?
- How will you reach your target audience?
- What sales methodologies will you use to increase the bottom line?
- How will you stay in front of current and potential customers?
- What are your key metrics for growth?
- What are your key partnerships?
- What are your advantages outside of your product or service?
- What does success look like to you?
Your answers to these questions will help determine the strategy you employ. They are components of the total goal, and they are also how progress can be measured along the way.
The Next Step is Tactics
Tactics, on the other hand, are how we get there with various resources typically attached to them. Tactics have a start and end date. Action points and milestones represent incremental progress towards the goal.
Tactics are owned, meaning when we deploy a tactic, we assign a specific person or team to own the task. Viewed together, the tactics we apply give us the means to track KPIs related to the strategy. Here are just a few examples of tactics:
- Website design development or optimization
- Content marketing, including blogs and pillar post wallpapers, landing pages, and all of which serve other techniques, like CRM and PPC
- Other types of content might include podcasts, videos, e-books, tips, sheets, etc.
- Your digital advertising such as social media ads, search engine marketing and banner ads, and CRM
Customer relationship management (CRM) is the most powerful tool that a marketer can have. Your CRM will ensure that your strategy is on track and that the tactics to support it are working, or to determine whether they need adjusting.
A CRM like HubSpot could help you track your critical metrics in a clear dashboard reporting format so you can attach a value to every tactic in interaction.
Need help developing a marketing strategy or executing tactics on an existing one? Let’s talk about your marketing goals. Contact Us!
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