If your marketing strategy is not achieving what you set out to achieve then it probably sucks.
A strategy is an informed set of decisions about how to win. If you’re not winning, there’s a good chance you made the wrong decisions.
The truth is that producing a good strategy takes a lot of effort. It requires an honest appraisal of your business, audience, opportunities and options. It also requires an ability to understand the pro and cons of certain decisions, as well as an understanding of what it takes to deliver.
If you can’t afford for your marketing strategy to suck, then it’s worth investing the time to do it properly.
In coming posts, we’ll provide a guide for how to produce a strategy that wins.
In the meantime, if you can’t confidently say yes to the following 10 questions then I’m afraid your strategy might really suck :(
- Do we have clear marketing goals?
- Do we understand our audience?
- Do we understand market trends and what best practice looks like?
- Have we considered our biggest challenges and opportunities?
- Do we know what needs to be true to achieve our goals?
- Do we have three to five strategic decisions to make those things true?
- Have we have detailed the actions needed for each decision?
- Are activities sequenced and documented in a realistic roadmap?
- Do we have the ability to deliver the roadmap?
- Are we setup to measure lead indicators and optimise performance?
If you confidently answered yes to each question then you might have a winning strategy. If so, I’d love to hear from you and the advice you’d give others at the start of a strategy process. @stephenellisau