Is Marketing Strategy Out of Favor?

wooden wagon wheelDoes this sound familiar? “We know our budget doesn’t let us do this right, but we need to do what we can.” No wonder marketing doesn’t have respect in so many organizations! You can’t meet your goal, so you “do what you can”? For any other group in your company, this would be completely unacceptable. For marketing in many organizations, it is almost expected.

The result too often is a series of random acts of marketing. One marketing activity that makes sense on the surface, but without complementary components, simply doesn’t deliver what it could. A single solitary activity (or even two or three) that do not surround the audience, that do not deliver and reinforce your message, that are not part of a larger cohesive story, are just random acts of marketing.

I see random acts of marketing too often in B2B marketing, both in campaigns that have the potential to be so much more and in conversations with B2B marketers and media companies. If this describes your marketing, or even comes close, stop. Right now. You have fallen off the (strategy) wagon and you need to get back on.

At the core, I see this happen for two primary reasons.

  • You do not have a clear, measurable and achievable marketing objective. Marketing tactics are striving to deliver against an overarching business goal, without a clear purpose.
  • You have a clear marketing objective, but you do not have a single strategy that ties all of you activity together. Instead, every opportunity is evaluated and pursued, or dismissed, on its individual merits.

Without a clear strategy, built on your marketing objective, marketing flounders. Conflicting messages. A content assortment. One-off advertising buys. All without a clear thread that pulls it together.

Without the thread, opportunities are lost. Your retail presence doesn’t reflect your latest campaign. Your search campaign missed an integration opportunity. Your audience doesn’t get the message. You attempt to align based on tactics, but there isn’t a bigger idea everyone is striving toward together.

Without a clear objective and approach to achieving it, your measurement is hampered. Your insights are limited. Your contribution to the business isn’t clear. And marketing continues to lose the respect of the organization.

It is time for marketers to get back on the strategy bandwagon.

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