What's YOUR Marketing Strategy?

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Stacey Krizan

January 21, 2009

Pundits agree that one of the most common marketing mistakes - whether the company is large or small - is operating without a marketing strategy.  I would suggest to the pundits that, in fact, EVERY company has a marketing strategy - it's just that some marketing strategies are far more strategic than others - and therefore, the truly strategic approaches will yield results which are measurable. So, I have assembled a list of marketing "strategies" that are less than strategic. Most companies have been guilty of them at one time or another, in varying degrees. The successful companies are the ones who recognize their mistakes and learn from them.

STRATEGY 1: Ready, Aim, Fire
Ad hoc marketing is at an epidemic level today. It is the marketing approach bred by a panicky response to the economy. Marketing departments that actually know better, in principle, whether due to budget constraints or time constraints, are taking a remarkably disjointed disorganized approach to marketing. Many of these companies have taken the time to develop their brand and brand message, know a great deal about their customers and the messages to be delivered. But they skip that last all-important step of taking the time (and potentially the money) to ensure that every marketing deliverable is planned for in the following key areas:
1.    Integration with other deliverables
2.    Timing with other initiatives and deliverables - are they building momentum?
3.    Brand messaging - are they consistent?
4.    Success metrics

The Ready, Aim, Fire approach, just like shooting wildly, sometimes hits the mark - but usually it does not. More often than not, a great deal of money is spent without maximizing results or ensuring a certain level of accountability. This is not a recommended strategy for companies struggling in this economy.

STRATEGY 2: Trial and Error
Marketing, by it's very nature, involves some amount of trial and error. One Director of Marketing recently admitted to his team, "We never should have run those ads in USA Today. It was expensive, and the leads received from it were minimal - well below expectations." However, he went on to add, "The creative tested very high in our focus groups, so we have isolated it to the placement." This Director knew why a particular initiative failed to meet expectations. 

The difference between Trial and Error as a strategy, and trying a new initiative you  realize was an error, is knowing what your success metrics are, and what variable did not align with expectations. Many companies today are blindly creating direct mail, whitepapers, landing pages and micro sites without any idea of whether a campaign will succeed or not. Even worse, they do not know why it fails, if it does, and therefore are unable to learn and improve. Instead they simply discard a certain channel entirely, when the channel itself may not be to blame.

STRATEGY 3: Reactionary
"We have this tradeshow next month and have nothing planned for it."

"We have to have the materials ready for the sales force so they can meet their sales goals, but the website is a crucial component, and we haven't even begun the redesign it requires."

"The competition is visible everywhere - we need to up our presence immediately."

 Those are the statements of real clients in real panic.  These emergencies do happen, however, if your company is constantly dealing with this sort of pop-up marketing emergency you may want to address whether your marketing plan is realistic - or only a portion of what it really takes to market your company.

The greatest trap in this kind of approach is that it leads right into the Ready, Aim, Fire Strategy.

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