Pillar 3: Strategy & Happy Thanksgiving

Welcome to the fourth of our 8-part exploration of The 7 Pillars of Successful Marketing

Pillar 3: Strategy defines the difference between high-level strategy and operational tactics. As before, the content of this post comes directly from Bryan Pope’s An Introduction to The 7 Pillars of Successful Marketing. I still encourage you to buy the download and accompanying PDF, and to follow Bryan’s blog.

Devise Strategies That Support You Specific Goals

“Your marketing strategy is a high-level picture of both what you are going to
accomplish with your marketing and how you are going to do it. But again, it is high level.
Perhaps the best way to paint the picture of how marketing strategy works is to
liken it to military strategy. Just as the military has a strategy, campaigns to support that
strategy, and the tactical forces in place to carry out the campaigns, marketing, too, has
strategies, campaigns, and tactics, which I call methods and vehicles. We’ll discuss those
later on. So let’s take a look at some marketing strategies so you can get an idea of what a
proper marketing strategy might be.

Market entry strategy: One common strategy among retail store operators is to enter a new market area and low-ball prices until consumers have created new habits and traffic patterns that take them to that store on a regular basis. Once the store is established, the operators will inch up prices until they are back at a level similar to their local competitors.

Notice in that scenario we didn’t talk about when the store will open or where or how
we will get the word out to our audience letting them know about the great deals we have.
Those are all details handled by campaigns, methods, and vehicles.

Strategy is important because at times we may have multiple campaigns supporting a
given strategy, with a number of methods and vehicles supporting each campaign. If we
don’t have a targeted strategy from which we are working, it will become very easy to get
off track with any number of our marketing activities and fail to meet the goal we’ve set.
Although the following list isn’t exhaustive, these are key elements of devising
strategies that will keep our marketing efforts focused:

1. Set measurable goals: Without goals we don’t know where we’re even
   wanting to go.
2. Establish timelines and milestones: For example, suppose I established a milestone and time of increasing revenues by at least 10% over a one-year period. In that scenario, the strategy established what I’m going to do in one year’s time. However, I would need to set a monthly milestones (For example, establish a 1% increase in monthly sales) to help me know if I’m on track.
3. Set a marketing budget: When we have meaningful goals set that include timelines and milestones so we can measure our success along the way, it becomes much more realistic to set meaningful budgets. If our budget is simply based on an arbitrary number, how do we know it will support our strategies?
4. The Path to Advocacy: This is a system that is compatible with any contact management software program (or even paper-based system) that will help you strategically advance people from being leads and contacts, to being qualified prospects, then clients. One of the best things about the Path to Advocacy is that it helps you create advocates out of your clients as well as those who are not, and may never be, your clients. It’s something you really should check into!”

Questions to Ask Yourself to Establish Your Market Strategy

• What is (are) my specific and measurable goal(s) with respect to the profit center I’m
  working on?
• What is the timeframe for the accomplishment of this (these) goal(s)?
• What milestones can I establish that will help me know if I’m on track?
• What is my marketing budget to support this effort?
• What is my product/service offering strategy?
• What is my price strategy?
• What is my placement/distribution strategy?
• Do I have the Path to Advocacy model instituted in my business?

The strategy pillar is also where we address elements related to the strategic makeup
of our products or services, the placement of those products or services, and our pricing
models—all, of course, based on the market research we’ve already done. Do you see
how this approach to marketing builds on itself? Every piece of the puzzle has its place,
and it is only with all the pieces in place that we create a complete marketing picture.

Please read Thursday’s post about how to translate your strategy into marketing campaigns