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Strategic Marketing vs. Tactical Marketing

Most businesses have both a strategic marketing plan and a tactical marketing plan, and it’s important to keep these two platforms separate. People often mistakenly assume that when you talk about marketing, you’re speaking of “tactical” marketing, which consists of placing ads, generating leads, sending out mailers and brochures, etc. However, strategic marketing focuses on the message and communication of the message. Simply put, tactical marketing is the execution of your marketing plan—the medium by which your message is delivered, and strategic marketing focuses on the content of your message—what you say and to whom you say it.

The key difference is the focus on making sure overall customer situations mesh with your overall company direction. Not to get distracted, or veer off course of your overall company direction, but at every step of development for your strategic plan, and execution of your plan, you are indeed on course for the overall vision and goals of the company.

Content vs. Execution

Many companies try to figure out how to sell more before they find out how to provide a solution to their consumers’ needs. The procedure for accomplishing this is exactly the same every single time, for every kind of business. It is the advertiser’s job to pay attention to human nature, to research human nature, and to have some insight into how people make their purchasing decisions. Strategically, marketing programs and advertising should get the attention of target market prospects and facilitate their decision-making. This lowers their risk for taking the next step in the buying process. By understanding what’s important to your target market, you can then put together a strategy that gets more qualified prospects to call, reduces your sales cycle, and increases your conversion ratios. After the strategy is in place, the tactical execution simply consists of testing and implementing your strategic plan.

Business-to-business Strategic Marketing

There is a business-to-business aspect to many companies, in which case these business-to-business transactions count as customer situation. For marketing to businesses that are your clients and customers, this means combining industry sector segmentation and product use with other factors related to purchasing decisions. For example, this would include purchase criteria and decision motivations that effect larger, enterprise sized purchases. In this case, part of your strategic marketing plan is to build strong, personal relationships with these larger businesses, and focus on providing customized service, products and even anticipate the needs of your business clients. Although a business is obviously a larger entity than a single customer, many of the same principles prevail; the most important being a keen sense of service, and making them feel they are important and that you pay special attention to them.

A strategic marketing plan encompasses developing a message, and developing the best way to communicate this message—and contemplates the best strategy to deal with communicating this message. Tactical marketing is important as it executes the strategic plan, but it is important to keep these two subjects divided as you develop a successful marketing plan for your company.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free JV Wealth e-zine.

Consider Collaborating With Other Business Owners for Increased Profits

Let’s say you have a successful Internet business with a successful e-marketing platform, and you feel you have good relationships with existing customers and fair success at gaining new business but then you hear about Collaboration Marketing and you wonder why all the hype? Why should you consider changing anything or expanding in a new direction?

Collaboration Marketing may not be a must for your business, but it’s certainly something worth exploring. You may not need to collaborate with other companies to grow your business, and you may be satisfied with the size and scope of your business. But even if you are not looking to grow, change, or expand, a collaboration strategy may help you maintain the smooth running of your current operations, which could mean less day to day work for you.

There are two distinct types of Collaboration Marketing that are important to understand. One deals with the actual advertising and marketing of your products, the other relates to the market in which you sell and distribute your products. Before making a decision about whether a collaboration strategy is right for your business, it is important to understand and explore both aspects of this type of marketing.

Advertising Collaborations focus on shared industry resources and word of mouth partnerships. If you have a small business specializing in making wedding cakes, you will benefit by making contact with other wedding industry professionals such as photographers, caterers and consultants. If a photographer has a client who has not yet decided on a bakery for their special cake, the advertising collaboration creates a point of contact and referral to recommend your wedding cake business to the client.

By the same token, if you have clients who have not yet selected a photographer for their wedding, you can recommend your collaboration partner, who is a wedding photographer. The success of your Advertising Collaboration will depend on your ability to form and develop successful business relationships.

Market Share Collaboration deals directly with the market in which your products are bought and sold and may be a large undertaking, but it’s an important process to understand in any marketplace. This type of collaboration has to do with banding together with other small businesses in your area, and forming a small cooperative to maximize cost savings for products you all use or need to do business.

For example, the Central Minnesota Buckwheat Growers formed a 16 member cooperative in order to market their buckwheat directly to larger buyers, and they received a substantially higher price for their product than they could have received individually.

You are probably not growing or selling buckwheat over the Internet, but this model holds true and translates across the board for any business. If you are a small business, you may benefit from partnerships with other small businesses in your same industry just like the Buckwheat Growers did when they formed a collective.

Collaboration Marketing is a model I believe you will find merits exploration. If done properly, it will provide a helpful way of expanding and solidifying your business for years to come.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free JV Wealth e-zine.

Strategic Marketing vs. Tactical Marketing

Most businesses have both a strategic marketing plan and a tactical marketing plan, and it’s important to keep these two platforms separate. People often mistakenly assume that when you talk about marketing, you’re speaking of “tactical” marketing, which consists of placing ads, generating leads, sending out mailers and brochures, etc. However, strategic marketing focuses on the message and communication of the message. Simply put, tactical marketing is the execution of your marketing plan—the medium by which your message is delivered, and strategic marketing focuses on the content of your message—what you say and to whom you say it.

The key difference is the focus on making sure overall customer situations mesh with your overall company direction. Not to get distracted, or veer off course of your overall company direction, but at every step of development for your strategic plan, and execution of your plan, you are indeed on course for the overall vision and goals of the company.

Content vs. Execution

Many companies try to figure out how to sell more before they find out how to provide a solution to their consumers’ needs. The procedure for accomplishing this is exactly the same every single time, for every kind of business. It is the advertiser’s job to pay attention to human nature, to research human nature, and to have some insight into how people make their purchasing decisions. Strategically, marketing programs and advertising should get the attention of target market prospects and facilitate their decision-making. This lowers their risk for taking the next step in the buying process. By understanding what’s important to your target market, you can then put together a strategy that gets more qualified prospects to call, reduces your sales cycle, and increases your conversion ratios. After the strategy is in place, the tactical execution simply consists of testing and implementing your strategic plan.

Business-to-business Strategic Marketing

There is a business-to-business aspect to many companies, in which case these business-to-business transactions count as customer situation. For marketing to businesses that are your clients and customers, this means combining industry sector segmentation and product use with other factors related to purchasing decisions. For example, this would include purchase criteria and decision motivations that effect larger, enterprise sized purchases. In this case, part of your strategic marketing plan is to build strong, personal relationships with these larger businesses, and focus on providing customized service, products and even anticipate the needs of your business clients. Although a business is obviously a larger entity than a single customer, many of the same principles prevail; the most important being a keen sense of service, and making them feel they are important and that you pay special attention to them.

A strategic marketing plan encompasses developing a message, and developing the best way to communicate this message—and contemplates the best strategy to deal with communicating this message. Tactical marketing is important as it executes the strategic plan, but it is important to keep these two subjects divided as you develop a successful marketing plan for your company.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free JV Wealth e-zine.