Treading water with just tactics
I know it seems like a lot of wordplay, but I can’t stress enough the need to pull your strategies out of…well, wherever you can. 
Seriously most of us are probably trying tactical stuff as we think of it. If it works, we continue. If not, we discontinue. But without strategy that requires a real knowledge of your desired customer, we never really know why one thing works and another doesn’t. That is what makes marketing seem so “squishy”.
With tactics, whether it’s advertising in a new magazine because the rep won’t leave you alone, or sponsoring your first event, there’s an element of closing your eyes and making a wish. When you select tactics that fit into well thought-out strategies, you can feel confident that at least you’re in the ballpark.
In case you were wondering, here are MY strategies for 2012:
- Target B2B contracts in the healthcare and finance industries
- Maintain presence in publishing industry and with authors
- Grow online influence and become considered an expert on marketing/PR
- Grow my personal “voice” online rather than just give advice
- Increase influence among business community in Minneapolis and Denver
- Grow revenues and profitability of business without losing balance or creating too much stress.
Tags: marketing strategy, marketing tactics
January 23rd, 2012 at 8:55 am
Small business marketing certainly is squishy. It has to be hit or miss by design. Small business clients occasionally ask me, “can we test market this?” Answer, the size of your actual campaign is smaller than a typical test market. You don’t have adequate numbers to divide the audience by 10 and try a smaller market, and it would cost 1/3 to 2/3 the cost of the regular campaign to run the test. So your smart move is to try, test, and measure – but not to test market.
January 23rd, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Sometimes, it’s a trial and error process when we think about strategies which can make our business grow. And it is not wrong if we fail in the start but finding the right one which suit our business well can definitely do something good. Your 2012 strategies are definitely amazing.
January 23rd, 2012 at 12:28 pm
I agree with Gary above sometimes its just not worth testing, you might as well just do it.
However, online it can be easier to test the water first. We often start a Google adwords campaign with a very limited budget to start with to ensure it is worth commiting a full spend to the campaign.
This also helps us refine the campaign to ensure positive results once we do commit fully.
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Thanks Ayesha. We’ll see if I can make some headway toward those strategies. Otherwise it’s just yakking!
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:07 pm
That’s a great point, also to test messaging by trying it out online. I’ve found that messaging has to be much more refined to work online…if it works there it usually works anywhere.
January 23rd, 2012 at 11:32 pm
To increase sales and run any small business profitably you need customers. So the coming of Internet and its widespread usage and adaption has started to change the way small companies advertise themselves.
January 24th, 2012 at 12:47 am
Hi Bonnie!
Can you explain to me what do you mean by “Grow my personal “voice” online rather than just give advice”? You want to influence people’s decisions rather than just give them advice? Did I get you right?
January 24th, 2012 at 6:09 am
Hello Bonnie, I am much agreed by your introduction part of your POST i.e. for any kind of Goal achievement there is a strong need of the Strategy..for B2B organization this sentence is quite applicable. Alright Back to my point, I read your tips regarding the business but since they are in short lengths, I was having the wish if we could get more detailed and deep knowledge about it!
January 24th, 2012 at 8:10 am
Hey Michael;
I know when I started my blog I still wrote in a very “business-y” type of voice…the kind of style you would find in a proposal or article for a magazine. I’ve learned that what really draws people to my work is when I write in a way that shows my true personality, rather than just being really “here’s how you do this or that”. So I’m going to start an opinion post on fridays to help do that. It’s really hard, after years of freelancing for magazines in THEIR voice, writing press releases in AP style, and of course writing for business. It’s taken a long time to find my own voice!
January 24th, 2012 at 8:45 am
Yep. That’s the trend. I’m managing a Facebook page for a company and Facebook gives the same advice about voice. Except Facebook recommends a conversational voice all or most of the time.
January 24th, 2012 at 9:00 am
I wonder if that’s part of the problem with magazines..the voice sounds “cold” now to readers compared to blogs, FB, etc.
January 24th, 2012 at 9:14 am
I more of the opinion that the greatest challenge to magazines is all the free content online.
January 24th, 2012 at 9:16 am
Actually magazines probably have so many challenges it would be impossible to list them all here.
January 25th, 2012 at 12:08 am
Bonnie, thanx for explaining))
February 3rd, 2012 at 7:16 am
Good advice. It’s really true that most of us simply don’t try top understand that why some of our marketing strategies succeed and why some others fail and it definitely helps to make better strategies for tomorrow.
February 5th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Great article – I preach the same thing on my blog – http://www.emarketingfreak.com . Too often, small business owners focus on marketing tactics, however, they do not have clear objectives because they do not know their strategic objective.
Check out this when you get a chance:
http://emarketingfreak.com/two-things-left-out-small-business-marketing-strategy/
February 8th, 2012 at 5:57 am
Completely agreed with what you have said. Making and implementing tactics and strategies doesn’t work but it’s also crucial to check out the effectiveness of your strategies for smart working in your industry.