Marketing Strategy – Why Don’t Companies Apply It? (Part 1)

Unfortunately I don’t really have the answer to that one. I have had some great blogging, email and regular conversations with marketing strategists, and we are all a little puzzled. What I keep coming back to is: we as marketers have to market marketing strategy (say that 3 times fast).

Let’s digress for a minute into jargon. In its extreme form jargon is used in cults to formulate a language that excludes outsiders and makes insiders feel like they have found their tribe. The same is true to a lesser degree within industry sectors; if you can speak the jargon then you have more credibility and find the respect that allows you to get past certain “cultural” barriers. There is jargon in every industry, culture and even demographic groups. What is the slang of the day? That is yet is another form of jargon.

Jargon can be a marketing tool or it can be an anti-marketing tactic. In this instance, we want marketers, our C-level bosses and the marketing vendors to be more strategic in their thinking. So what is strategy? My definition is: it is what we ultimately want to accomplish. It falls out of our objectives, which are the overarching goals. The tactics then logically fall out of the strategy.

So can we change our own marketing jargon and start using plain language to describe what we need? Why don’t we stop using the word “brand” in our discussions with product marketing and even some C-level executives? We can still use “brand” amongst our fellow marketers, but even we have disagreements as to what brand really is. How about asking:

·        What do you want to accomplish?

·        Who do you want to accomplish it with (target audiences and strategic partnerships)? Why?

·        What’s in it for you and what’s in it for them?

The answers to these questions would deliver strategy into our laps without ever once discussing “brand”… or for that matter “strategy.”

The other side of the coin is to actively talk about strategy. Educate our constituents that the above questions are all strategy really is, and answering them will make the whole company in alignment with a goal, and ensure all marketing execution is in alignment with a cohesive approach. This is the marketer marketing strategy. In fact maybe some of the larger marketing associations could take on a strategy educational campaign.

There is a great exercise I have used in the past to illustrate what strategy is from a conceptual perspective. I will offer it to you in next Friday’s post. I will also offer more examples of what objectives, strategies and tactics might look like in a plan.