What is a Marketing Strategy?

Consider this question: What is a Marketing Strategy? It’s a loaded question, and it’s also a simple one.

Thinking back to Marketing 101, markets are what are created when a buyer and seller come together. Marketing, meanwhile, is the act of pairing those buyers and sellers – the process of creating demand that drives the two together.

With that context in mind, a marketing strategy is, of course, the plan for how we get there.

Throwing spaghetti at the wall

We’ve all heard the analogy: throw spaghetti at the wall, and see what sticks. When it comes to marketing, that’s unfortunately most often what happens. Advertising folks start advertising, PR folks start pitching, and the hope is that something is going to stick when it’s all said and done. Throw enough spaghetti, and enough will stick to the wall – enough marketing will resonate and convert your audience.

To me, that approach doesn’t seem very ‘strategic’.

What is a strategy?

Think about that word ‘strategy’, and what feelings it evokes in you. We’re talking about your plan of action, how you’re going to get from A to Z as smoothly as possible, and with the best possible Z you can produce. It’s methodical, it’s deliberate, and it’s effective. That’s strategy.

Think about your favorite sports teams, because there’s a really good chance they have strategy. They don’t just pass the ball, or block, or defend; they have a plan of action that incorporates each of those elements at the right time with the right resources. And they don’t just go out on the field and do it, they practice, and get better and stronger, and more strategic over time. And there’s a strategy for getting that done the best way possible too.

Strategy is strategy, even with turkey

To really think about strategy, let’s think about one of my favorite past-times: cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I’m talking the actual day, 3 to 4 cooks in the kitchen, someone’s making stuffing, two folks on turkey, someone’s got mashed potatoes, another on corn, desserts, etc.

I love making Thanksgiving dinner, which a lot of people struggle to understand. Making Thanksgiving is supposed to be crazy, hectic, but in my world, it never is. The reason I can love making Turkey Day Dinner is because I always go into it with a strategy.

Before any cooking gets done, early in the day, every cook gets together to discuss their goals and plan of action. We look at who’s got what dish, what space they need in the kitchen, and how long it takes to make their dish. Then, we work backward.

The result is a map, a strategy for when each cook needs to enter the kitchen, where they’ll be cooking their dish, etc. We have our strategy.

The best part of our strategic approach to stuffing and soufflés, though, is that our process actually becomes better as a result. We realize in the planning that we can help each other out: the Corn Cook realizes she can pull out the Mashed Potato Cook’s butter to soften, or the Stuffing Cook and the Green Bean Casserole Cook realize they can double up on the oven since they cook at the same temperatures.

By putting a plan together, we all find ways to make the best results with even more efficiency. And at the end, ding, all the food is done and ready and awesome at once.

Successful marketing is like successful Thanksgiving

A great Thanksgiving strategy yields a great meal. A great marketing strategy yields a great customer experience. So if we’re talking turkey, let’s work backward.

Let’s say you’re selling cheeseburgers for Burger Lord Burgers. You’re a brand new concept in the market, no one’s heard of your business or your delicious Ooey-Gooey Cheesy Chewy Burger yet.

Get your whole team together, and work backward. Envision success – your customer has eaten the amazing OG-CC Burger, he loved it, and he’ll be back for another soon. So, how did he get there?

Working backward, he probably saw signage advertising the location nearby, and, being aware of the brand, decided to try it.

How did he become aware? He probably heard and saw messaging for Burger Lord Burgers. That means there were ads for the OG-CC, and maybe even local news anchors posting videos online of them enjoying the burger too. There may have been digital or fm radio ads too, or maybe even cable or OTT television ads.

Of course, those ads weren’t blasted at him at once either. They were planted over time, loud enough to overcome other noise, but soft enough to not be invasive. Most recently he probably saw the news anchors and local influencers online. Before that, targeted digital added to his awareness, and before that, his initial awareness was created through traditional advertising techniques.

Map out your cooking

I got to mention several marketing tactics in our backward example. We covered media planning, social media, public relations, and digital, broadcast and OOH advertising. So, now it’s time to map out your cooking schedule.

Seems like the earliest thing we need to do is create awareness, and that’s when we start our advertising strategy. That gets backed up with public relations, which helps cement our tiny but growing awareness with some brand familiarity.

After that, we continue to push until Place (4 Ps of marketing) aligns with the customer, and out-of-home signage creates the opportunity to interact.

After that, we need to live up to the brand promise (the OG-CC burger needs to be as ooey and gooey as expected) and also create an experience that makes the customer want to come back.

And while we’re at it, let’s add some incentives to help them return, like a loyalty program or customer experience survey.

Make it better

With a strategy in hand, you’ve tapped into your customer’s journey, and inserted yourself into it. The end result is a buyer and seller transaction, a market. And the strategic approach is understanding the ‘when’s and ‘where’s of each tactic.

But how do we make it better? Consider all of our tactics in concert. Several are going to pull from the same messaging strategy, and when they realize this, they’ll see they can pool their resources to better refine the message, or lean on each other’s research for support.

There will also be opportunities to maximize creative value, by changing and adjusting campaign materials from one tactic to another rather than recreating from scratch. Paid media opportunities may also lead to future PR opps as relationships grow between marketing and vendors.

The possibilities are limitless, but they only come to light when the strategy is in place with all the players present.

Get from A to Z with the best possible Z

Your strategy is the path you’re going to walk to get to the finish line. A great strategy gets you there quicker, with as few wasted efforts as possible.

Strategy requires a bigger investment of time and energy than throwing spaghetti at a wall. It means a lot of planning and thinking. It means considering the channels your audience operates in, and it means considering much more about how your audience makes decisions.

Put it all together, and you have a winning strategic marketing plan. It’s a lot more work for cooking spaghetti, but you can be sure every piece you throw is one that was made precisely to be as sticky as possible.