Jan

Marketing Strategy vs. Tactics Made Easy

Many people mix up marketing strategy and tactics. If you search the internet you will find many references to both that are incorrectly referenced and used. Simplistically speaking, marketing strategy is your idea; or how you will reach your specific and measurable goal. Marketing tactics are the actions that you use to make your idea (strategy) come to life.

Let’s look at an example of marketing strategy vs. tactics fall in place from the top down:

Marketing Goal (measurable objective):

Double my consulting revenue by December 31^st.

Marketing Strategy (idea):

Increase brand exposure

Tactics (actions):

Submit my prewritten guest article on widget making to Mr. Jones’s blog
Increase my max CPC bid to $0.90 in Google Adwords for the phrase “josh baker”
Post video from conference at Youtube

How about a non-marketing analogy to make it even easier?

Goal (measurable objective):

Buy new black shoes for tonight’s dinner

Strategy (idea):

Buy shoes at shoe store at 361 Main Street

Tactics (actions):

Get into car
Turn car on
Turn left out of driveway
Drive straight for 2 miles
Pull into parking spot in front of store
Go into store
Ask salesperson for brand XYZ in size 10, black
Etc.

Your tactics are the individual actions that you take to make your strategy come to life. Your strategy is the idea that will help you reach your goal.

That is marketing strategy vs. tactics made easy!