A successful marketing guy asked me a question recently — a real no-brainer — which led me to believe he didn’t know the difference between marketing strategy and tactics.
How can that be? He’s held several high-paying marketing positions. He has an MBA. He’s gotta know this stuff.
So I started doing some research online and I’ve found the problem: The internet, social media, and Ai.
Just about every day there’s another misleading blog post about marketing strategy and tactics. There’s more misinformation than information out there. More nonsense than common sense. Especially on the social media platforms.
For instance, I ran across one article that listed “search engines” as a marketing strategy and said “long-term strategies such as giving away freebies will continue to pay off years down the road.”
Freebies are NOT a strategy. Search engines are NOT a strategy. Digital is NOT a strategy.
Just the other day one of the biggest gurus of digital marketing published a post about “marketing strategy” that was flat-out wrong. It was about media buying — specifically, choosing Facebook over Television advertising.
That’s not Marketing Strategy, that’s tactical media buying. That’s Step 5 in the branding process, not the beginning.
This isn’t just a matter of semantics, it’s negligence. Advice like that would never get past the editors of a brand-name business magazine, but you can find it on-line. All over the place.
The easiest way to clarify the difference between marketing strategy and tactics is to go to the source…
I’m sorry if the war analogy doesn’t appeal to you, but that’s where these terms came from, some 3,000 years ago. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. All the generals since have followed his lead.
Here’s how it breaks down: Goals first. Then strategy. Then tactics.
Goal: Win the war.
Strategy: “Divide and conquer.”
Possible Tactics:
- CIA spies gather intelligence to determine where the enemy is.
- Navy Seals knock out enemy communications. Blow up bridges. Cut off supply routes.
- Paratroopers secure the airports.
- Drone attacks take out the enemy leadership’s command and control centers.
- Armored Divisions and tank battalions race in from different directions and divide the opposing army’s forces.
- Finally, an overwhelming force of infantry invade leading to the nitty gritty tactic of hand-to-hand combat.
Here’s an analogy from the world of reality TV:
Let’s say you’re in a survival situation, similar to what the contestants face on “Alone.”
The goal is simple… just find enough food to feed yourself for approximately 70 days in the arctic wilderness, and be the last one standing. Basically, don’t starve to death.
Possible strategies are:
• Hunting for small game. Mice and rabbits may be plentiful, but the pay-off is small.
• Hunting for big game. Get all the food you need in one epic kill.
• Foraging. But will a vegetarian diet of roots, berries and mushrooms sustain you?
• Fishing. High protein — if you can catch it.
• Laying around. Preserving energy so you don’t need to hunt for much food at all.
So you have to do the research. Scout the land. Determine which strategy provides the best possible chance of survival. And you have to make tough choices. If you try to do too much, you’ll starve.
Let’s say you decide that fishing is the best strategy. Then you need a realistic tactical plan… where to fish. What to use for bait. What type of fishing gear. What time of day. How to prepare and preserve the fish.
Tactical realities like those often play a major role in which strategy you choose. See, strategy and tactics are always linked. They are like the yin and yang of marketing.
A marketing strategy is an idea… A conceptualization of how the goal could be achieved.
Like “Divide and Conquer.” Another possible war strategy would be “Nuke ‘Em.” (They call them Strategic Nuclear Weapons because they pretty much eliminate the need for any further battlefield tactics.)
In WWII, allied generals spent more than six months mapping out the strategy to win the war in Europe before D-Day. They diagnosed the problem, researched the enemy, pinpointed weaknesses and literally mapped out a plan of attack.
Much of that strategic debate about D-Day focused on what NOT to do… Where NOT to invade. What battlefields to avoid. So the essence of strategy is making choices and being selective.
Here’s an example of good marketing strategy – from Under Armour.
A marketing tactic is an action you take to execute the designated strategy.
Strategic thinking. Tactical acting. See the difference? But let’s get off the battlefield and look at a successful brand.
In business, great strategies are built on BIG ideas. And BIG ideas usually stem from some little nugget of consumer insight.
Back in the 70’s, executives at Church & Dwight Inc. noticed that sales of their popular Arm & Hammer baking soda were slipping. The market research showed that the loyal moms and grandmas who had been buying Arm & Hammer all their lives weren’t baking as much as they used to. So baking soda as a baking ingredient was never going to produce the sales growth Arm & Hammer needed.
Business Goal: Turn the tide and increase Baking Soda sales.
Strategy: Devise new uses for the product, thus new reasons for people to buy baking soda.
They had to expand their customer base beyond avid bakers. Someone had the idea to sell Arm & Hammer as a deodorizer for the fridge. That’s a big, strategic idea that led Arm & Hammer in a completely different direction. Putting an open box of Arm & Hammer in the fridge was a common household practice, but they had never marketed their product that way.
Without changing the product one bit, they tapped into a whole new vertical market.
They’re now marketing a whole line of environmentally friendly cleaning products. Every current Arm & Hammer product, from toothpaste to cat litter, originated from that strategy of finding new ways to use baking soda. And in the process, an old-fashioned brand has managed to stay relevant.
Tactics: All the traditional and digital marketing tactics have been employed… TV advertising. Magazine ads. Digital advertising. Search engine marketing. Content marketing. Retail promotions. Social media. And a very useful website dedicated to all the various applications of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda.
The combination of a big-idea strategy, and plenty of supporting tactics allowed Arm & Hammer to exceed every growth projection.
All great marketing strategies share these common traits:
• Thorough understanding of the brand’s status and story. Arm & Hammer has a strong heritage that dates back to the 1860’s. That orange box with the red Arm & Hammer logo is instantly recognizable, and stands for much more than just generic sodium bicarbonate. It’s iconic.
• A realistic assessment of the market situation and product’s strengths & weaknesses. Market research proved what Arm & Hammer executives suspected… that people don’t bake as much as they used to. But it also showed that people were using their baking soda for all kinds of things besides baking. That was the insight that drove the strategy.
• A clear picture of the competition. Arm & Hammer has always been the undisputed market leader in the category. However, when they decided to introduce toothpaste and laundry detergent, the competition became fierce. Arm & Hammer’s long-standing leadership position in one vertical market gave them a fighting chance against Procter & Gamble when they decided on a brand extension strategy.
• Intimate knowledge of the consumer and the market. The shift away from the traditional American homemaker directly affected baking soda sales. Church & Dwight kept up with the trends, and even led the charge on environmental issues.
• A grasp of the big-picture business implications. Good brand strategies reach way beyond the marketing department. When you have a big idea, execution of the strategy will inevitably involve operations, R&D, HR, finance and every other business discipline.
• A clear plan of tactical action to be taken. Even the greatest strategy still depends on brilliant tactical execution for success. However, even the best tactics can’t compensate for a lousy strategy. You can waste a lot of money on marketing tactics if there’s no cohesive strategy involved.
Some people confuse marketing strategy with marketing objectives. They are not synonymous. Here are a few examples of “marketing strategies” from seemingly credible on-line sources:
“Create awareness.” “Overcome objections.” “Boost consumer confidence.” “Refresh the brand.” “Turnkey a multiplatform communications program.”
That’s just marketing industry jargon.
Those are NOT strategies, they’re goals. (And not even very good goals.) Remember, it’s not a strategy unless there’s an idea behind it.
Any number of strategies can be used to achieve a business goal. In fact, it often takes more than one strategy to achieve a lofty goal, and each strategy involves its own unique tactical plan.
Unfortunately, a lot of marketing managers simply throw together a list of the tactics they’ve always used, and call it a strategy.
If you’re still wondering about the difference between marketing strategy and tactics, try the “what-if” test…
At Dominoes, someone said, “Hey, what if we guaranteed 30-minute delivery?” Dominoes couldn’t compete on product quality or price, but they could compete on speedy delivery.
So a strategy was born.
After that, their entire operation revolved around the promise of 30-minute delivery. They built a hell of a strategy around a simple, tactical idea. That strategy worked well for more than 20 years until a lawsuit forced them to abandon it. Now Jimmy John’s owns the “Super fast delivery” niche in the fast food industry.
At Arm & Hammer someone asked, “What if we could come up with a bunch of new uses for baking soda?” Presenting people with entirely new ways to use your product is a good marketing strategy.
On the other hand, “What if we do search engines?” doesn’t make sense. Must be a tactic.
“What if we increase market share?” There’s no idea in that, so it must be a goal.
What if we could screen all web content for factual errors and eliminate some of the conflicting information you find. Wouldn’t that be nice?
The fact is, even the sharpest marketing people need help sometimes. Even the most savvy entrepreneurs run into roadblocks on a regular basis. They crash and burn, pick up the pieces and keep on going!
BNBranding can help you navigate the world of marketing and take your business to the next level. We have a disciplined branding process that produces a unique strategy that will differentiate you from all your competitors. And then we help you execute that strategy it in creative new ways.
It starts with an affordable test drive assessment of your current marketing efforts. We’d be happy to do that for you. It’s a simple, no-risk assessment that will point the way forward. No matter where you’re starting.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2023 BNBranding.
John,
I too have noticed how the line between strategy and tactics has become blurry. Reading your post was a good reminder of marketing 101: tactics fail without strategy.
Oh how it scares me that you needed to publish this. But glad you did! Thanks…
John,
The term “Strategy” is so badly abused in the world of Branding — As elsewhere. I chock it up to the fact that most people are tactical… ready, fire, aim types.
My personal favourite definition of “Strategy” is “knowing what not to do.” Your strategy, defines your actions and keeps you from getting distracted on the wrong tactics.
— Axle Davids
@1day1brand
Excellent post on an often confused subject, primarily thanks to the internet. Really like the way you’ve used examples to explain.
when you throw in ‘objectives’ – it becomes increasingly jumbled.
I think the “What-if” test will help a lot of people to understand the difference.
Great post, thank you.
That’s for sure! Thanks for reading.
-john
I sure hope so.
Thanks for reading!
-John
John – where do ‘objectives’ fit in?
Great article. Just learnt a lot from the what ifs. I never went to business school, but this article has helped to differenciate and read between the BS of most brand “strategists” or rather tacticians. Thanks
Objectives/goals gotta come first. You build your strategy around them.
I have asked dozens of web marketing professionals if they know the difference between strategies and tactics. They typically reel off a list of tactics that they think are strategies. When you point out the difference, they get offended because they think all marketing is the internet.
Thanks for posting this. It was worth restating again. http://addoptions.org/blog/?p=42
A strategy is at it’s core a guide to behavior. A good strategy drives actions that differentiate the company and produce financial success.
It’s amazing that you had to publish this but at the same time it’s useful to set the record straight.
One area where the confusion is becoming almost codified is in job categories. There have a been a slew of recent postings for titles in “Digital Strategy,” but when you examine the descriptions they invariably want media planners. Media planning — online or otherwise — is almost entirely tactical.
John,
What if we
What if we thought of a way for knowledge to be improved in every person by 10%?
What if we could conceive a way to make everyone have a license to own a domain name?
What if we could mandate every person had to be tested before they were able to host a site?
What if there was a certification program that would put a giant stamp on websites / blogs which were accurate?
I think I’m getting the hang of this. 🙂
What if we postcard? nope
What if we facebook? (people say that which confuses things)
What if we twitter? (people say that too)
Just as the trend has changed from creating our own labels and identity in the phone boo or other traditional mediums, the search engine does respond to what is in the heads of those with fast thoughts and shaky keyboard fingers.
To be “found” we bend to the words the crowd is using. To not do so makes us accurate and right but alone in the corner. I have a constant debate as to whether it is helpful to add misspelled keywords to the list deliberately.
So do we listen and fill what people perceive to be the need even if it is not how the language / definition was created? Or do we stick to our guns and say “everyone is stupid and I wish they would get it”?
Except for the rant in the beginning I really enjoyed your article. Will see where I can out reference to it in my resource box for workshops. I have constant imperfections and find myself shifting back and forth with definitions and language every month. As you said, the Internet has given everyone an appearance of authority and education. (even me) 🙂
@michaelhartzell
PS
Strategy has become a gobbleygook word like innovation.
Check out http://gobbledygook.grader.com/ It will give a gobbleygook score for an article. hmmm. Wonder if I should do it with this comment? naw…. too risky. 🙂
The confusion doesn’t end there. Strategy used to mean five or ten years. Now it’s closer to two; so the time frame covered by tactics is also changing.
This article adds to the confusion, however, but stating categorically which things are strategic and which things are tactical. The fact is that it depends on who you ask. There’s no agreement as to what it is, who does it, or if it even matters. (I can give you a boatload of references that attest to this if you’re really interested.)
There’s nothing wrong with offering an opinion, as long as it’s presented as such, rather than the “I can’t believe how stupid everyone is” approach.
Dr Bruce Hoag, CPsychol
Work Psychologist
http://www.p-advantage.com/Newsletter.php
Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again – taking you feeds also, Appreciation.
Hey John,
that was a great article. “There has to be an idea behind a strategy!” you made it so simple to understand! Thanks
Dipti
John;
A great article and one which was much needed to clear up some confusion. Thanks!
To add to this article, given it’s all about strategy, here’s some food for thought on the strategy behind using Social Media Marketing, or SMM as part of one’s marketing mix.
Like any of your marketing endeavors, your SMM Campaigns should of course be run against or according to a strategy designed to achieve a specific goal (and of course, use Tactics to get there).
Many people understand this intuitively, but have difficulty designing the strategy or perhaps their difficulty is in thinking strategically versus tactically. So many of our clients asked for help in this area that we decided to write a post on the subject. The link is at the end of this comment points to a blog index with 4 posts on it:
1) How to Run a SMM Campaign. This is a formal process description on how to run your campaigns according to the Process Mantra of Think, Plan, Do, Measure and Repeat. You may recognize these as part of a Continuous Process Improvement strategy. And because the specification calls for using ROI as one of the metrics to monitor, the other 3 posts cover:
2) How to measure the ROI of your website as a whole
3) The 10 best free ROI calculators on the Web and
4), How to build your own ROI calculator so that you can measure the ROI of your SMM.
Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/cEc0ln
I have always use the formula MOST: Mission, Objectives, Strategy and Tactics. This way i think you cant go wrong……….
Some really great opinions here. This article provides its Marketing Strategy vs. Tactics. It is important to actually figure out how compatible a subject is for a certain social media channel.
forum
Strategy vs. Tactics: In a nutshell, strategy can be defined as a long-term means to an end whereas tactics can be defined as a short-term means to an end. A strategy is a way of achieving a desired goal in the longrun whereas a tactics is a way of achieving a desired goal in the shortrun. Remember, strategists think long-term, tacticians think short-term, but both are needed to succeed. Hope I was helpful
This is an excellent separation of strategy versus tactics. You are so right – much of the advise on the web is to treat strategy as the front end of a marketing plan, independent of goals.
Thank you!
Fantastic! Language seems to have taken a backseat to expediency… Use whatever comes to mind, no need to worry about being correct or even knowing how to spell for that matter. As marketers, maybe we should learn to write in emoticons.
Why the confusion. I knew about the difference even before entered college. You skipped “objectives”
Hey John,
Thanks for putting this information together. Clears lot of questions I had in mind.
Great work.
Thanks,
Thank you for making it clear in people’s mind what the difference is! Great article!!
One big factual error is in your description of the Arm & Hammer case. I was there in 1969 when Jerry Schoenfeld, the new product guru – then president of Kelly, Nason New York – and Bob Davies – then Baking Soda brand manager, later President and then CEO of Church & Dwight – implemented it.
The strategy was “Get people to use more baking soda with each use” The tactic was: put an open box in the refrigerator to get rid of odors. Other tactics were: use it in your cat litter, and my personal favorite – dump it down the sink to ‘sweeten the drain’ after it’s been in the fridge. Brilliant. You’re right that it launched many new products and a new life for a classic brand.
reveberating some of the comments..this is an excellent article.
Interestingly, the word “strategy” is probably the most over-used word in a MNC. It echoes from every meeting room to another, and every ppt slide must have a mention of this to be vetted. The blurry edge of strategy and tactics drive this. A lot of tactics nowadays are labeled as tactical strategies – a misnomer or an oxymoron. So much enery and focus goes down the gutter of not having strong leaders stepping in to differentiate and set directions on this…but of coures they may have been confused by the internet!
How interesting the concept of strategies and many others were invented and applied successfully at the warfront!
i like the way you have divided the whole context and then discussed it. i was not aware of this as well to be honest, but now i understood it well. Thank you
Thanks for clarifying things for me 🙂 I am a second year marketing student and this is surprisingly very helpful while writing some essays 🙂
Cheers.
Nicely said. Was looking around for an article such as this to send to a colleague, and didn’t want to have to write up something myself – and you said it much better than I could have. Much appreciated.
Great article! The final paragraph with the what if’s was most helpful for me. It made sure every bit of confusion was removed. Which I had read it sooner!
John, I can’t not explain how much this post as meant to me. I shared it with my associates already and I am most certain that I will share it again this time next year as it has helped me to lead my real estate agents in devising their business plans. Asking the what if’s questions and other questions like: how will you achieve this, what’s the value of achieving this is extremely helpful.
This article was wonderfully written and very informative!! I’m an internet marketing major and the discussion this week is the difference between strategy and tactic. You article has been a great help to better my understanding of the two.
Nice summation and nice placement on page one BTW! It’s nice to be “found”.
In my industry of real estate sales strategy is almost completely sublimated by tactical efforts. In my consulting with agents they trip over themselves to tell me about their “strategies” which consist of hiring website companies or CMS software or a newfangled yard sign.
When I sit down with them and start working through their approach to objectives/strategy (deliberately ignoring tactical items) their eyes usually glaze over or they confess to wanted to just “do something”.
Great job explaining this! From previous research, I found a ton of awful articles about the subject, but you clearly explained it with excellent details! Thank you!
I definitely learned something here…thanks for the information!
so thankful there are people like you could explain things clearly
Wonderful article. In a recent business meeting I was reminded by the presenter that success in business comes down to three things. Strategy, tactics and analytics. And when all the smoke clears it really does come down to fundamentals, and knowing their definitions helps! I love the war metaphor. Very clever.
Can a tactic exist without strategy? Vice versa?
Simply put: strategy is thought; tactics are actions.
The act of strategy is a tactic; strategies may be composed of tactics.
A strategy with very little thought resembles a tactic; a tactic involving involving a great deal of thought resembles a strategy.
I ask this question in almost every job interview. It is a tactic I use to gauge a candiates ability to think (as a strategy).
I believe the article is great, and simplifies the difference between Strategy and Tactics. I have also read the comments and thought, if i could get some suggestions or rather tactics to increase my sales. I have a wholesale and a retail store and sell Branded Perfumes. The sales had dropped in the last 3 months and nothing is coming to my head. Please suggest.
Congrats! Great article and after all this time it is number3 result in Google when searching “tactics vs strategy”.
But would it be possible to explain me again me again what is the difference between “Divide and Conquer” and “Boost consumer confidence”. I think they both pass the What If test, so it is all up to “the idea behind”. I don’t get it?!
“Boost consumer confidence” is a goal, and a pretty vague one at that. Divide and conquer is a strategy.
Thanks for the great article. Ive often wondered what the difference was between strategy and tactics. This i a very good explanation. Thankyou!
Great explanation and examples of goals, stategies and tactics thank you John. I’m running a marketing course at the moment and have now included a question on the difference between each to make sure that my students become clear on the differences.
Thanks greatly!
This has been a good blog to help me differentiate strategic vs tactical marketing. I will keep them compartmentalize in my future endeavors or marketing.
Hi John:
This is the most simple and practical explanation I have ever read about the difference between a strategy and a tactic. And yes, the lines do get blurry but after reading this article I had so many inspirational ah-ha moments and I thank you for this.
Great article! Simple yet profound. Wish I read it a few years ago. Well done!
Sean
I came here through the other post and wanted to acknowledge how much I enjoyed your article. This really is the most popular article on this blog. Wow! Absolutely incredible!
Thank you for this awesome post.
Regards,
Kumar
Yes! Finally something about sales strategies.
THANK YOU! im in advertising undergrad and you are so right the internet is FULL OF false and confusing information, now i will never forget the difference between tactics and strategies.
Hey! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this page to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
Excellent article and very well written. At times, I feel people use the word “strategy” to sound … well, “strategic”. A goal defines point “B”, as opposed to point “A”, which is where you are now. The goal is what you want to accomplish. A strategy gives you an idea about how to get there, but it’s only an idea. The devil is in the details, which is where the tactics come in. Strategies without a goal will get you somewhere (provided they have supporting tactics), but you have no idea where that might be. Strategies without tactics will always look nice on paper, but nothing will ever happen. Tactics without goals and strategies in turn will not necessarily produce favorable results.
Hi John,
Maybe you can help me clarify this. From my perspective there are many cases where the difference between goals, strategy and tactics is not so clear cut. Say you are an Anti-Hunger nonprofit doing your website. In that context, take the statement “Educate the public about the benefits of anti-hunger programs.” Is this a goal, a strategy or a tactic? It seems like it could be all three, depending on the context, what comes before and after in the chain of actions. Take this longer chain of goal-strategy-tactic–can you clearly establish which is which?
Alleviate hunger >
encourage an expansion of anti-hunger programs >
create public support for anti-hunger programs >
educate the public about the benefits of anti-hunger programs >
present program benefit information on our site in an engaging way >
use stories, video, charts, illustrations
You could say the first item on the chain is clearly a goal, and the last one is clearly a tactic. What about everything in the middle?
Thanks in advance
What’s up, after reading this remarkable paragraph i am as well delighted to share my familiarity here with mates.
Great article. I am (and have always been) very confused by Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics. I’m still not clear, and as a middle aged marketer, I really need to get this sorted out!
Does every person in the organisation set their own Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics, or is each associated with a certain level in the organisation? For example, as a digital marketing manager, am I setting my own Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics, or am I simply executing Tactics that comply with the Goals, Objectives, Strategies my Marketing Director and General Manager have set?
The answer to the paragraph above may influence the relevance of the following comments. It seems to me that what is a tactic at a senior level of the organisation, can be a goal for a more junior member of the organisation. Is that possible? Or do the more senior members of the organisation not engage in setting tactics? If a Marketing Manager decides on tactics that include the development of a new Facebook page, is it possible that the Marketing Co-ordinator may have “Develop new Facebook page” as a goal, and then has to set Objectives, Strategies and Tactics at his/her level to launch that page? The Marketing Co-ordinator’s Strategies might include “Upgrade web site destination content” and Tactics might drill down to “Write new article on planning a better dinner party for the web site” and “Organise photo shoot for dinner party article” (BTW, I could still have the above examples of Strategies and Tactics incorrect, too.)
Sorry – I have always been seriously confused by the above questions!
As a tactical marketer, your goals and to-do list should come from the marketing strategy. That’s the short answer. Thanks for reading!
Love this article because it reminds me of a client request we received a few years back for a “strategy”. We presented strategic recommendations only to be yelled at “Where are your strategies???!!!” Only then did I realize the SVP Marketing client wanted tactics. Cart. Meet Horse.
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Finally a proper article on this! Really awesome super useful info! I wondered the same question as the guy you described. I’m taking a course in marketing and didn’t know what the teacher was referring too when mentioning both strategy and tactics and didn’t dare to ask…
Thanks a lot for sharing this!
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Thanks for giving a significant definition between strategies and tactics. There still webmasters who doesn’t have a better understanding of tactics vs strategies and I must say that reading this post will give webmasters better ideas and solutions for the success of their online marketing endeavors. Surely, this post will be helpful to them as it is to me. Thanks for posting an amazing analysis here!
Awesome blog you have here but I was curious if you knew of any discussion boards that cover
the same topics discussed in this article? I’d really like to be
a part of online community where I can get responses from other experienced individuals that share the
same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let
me know. Many thanks!
There are some LinkedIn Groups that I’d recommend. Shoot me an email directly and I’ll give you the run-down on them. Thanks for reading!
Very good article. Thanks for the enlightenment on the difference between marketing strategy and marketing tactics.
Thanks for the good read. It does surprise me that many people throughout the industry cannot write a proper Creative Strategy and generally confuse Objective with Strategy. I must also impress upon you that a meaningful Strategy, e.g. Marketing, Business, Advertising or Creative is one of the most difficult pieces to produce. To keep it simple, I think of it in terms of a map i.e. “Where are we going” for Strategy and “How are we going to get there” for Objective. The rest is Support and Stats. The best at the game said: ” A great campaign will make a bad product (or service) fail faster.” —Bernbach Smart people in this business are in desperate short supply.
Thanks for sharing, this is great.
Same goes for media and marketing. There’s no such thing as traditional or new media, just as there’s no such thing as traditional or social media marketing. All there is media and marketing and both have always been and always will be in a constant state of tactical evolvement.
Thanks for sharing great article, also learn a lot from these tips. it really informative and helpful.
I agree with you, both are different, not same.
Thanks for giving us your thoughts and a clear distinction for the terms. The military analogy works very well. So much of the online communication needs to be viewed within the proper context of its delivery. While there is no doubt that there are a few uninformed people out there, we can find plenty of good stuff even when some of the terminology is confused.
I can see how someone might think of a search engine as a “strategy” when they or thinking of broad marketing approaches as in, online vs conventional ads.
That said, a more concise understanding will always get a better result.
Thanks.
You’ve got some great information about marketing here. I like how you said that giving away things is not a strategy. It’s also great to keep in mind that goals come first, then strategies, then tactics. Marketing is a huge task for businesses, so breaking it down like that seems smart.
Thanks for sharing this interesting topic. Keep Posting.
Great piece. As a marketing professional, this is one of my pet peeves too. I especially like the war analogy for goals, strategies, and tactics. I think I’m going to make it a game we play at the office. Give an example of goals, strategies, tactics. Goal: Improve profitability by increasing customer retentiong and lifetime value. Strategy: Connect the customer with the brand in a strong and positive way by creating customer success stories. Tactics: Listen to the customers needs, respond to these needs in an affirmative and effective way, follow-up with these customers to keep them engaged and convert them into brand advocates. This is the big-picture breakdown for a lot of my clients.: http://www.rdialogue.com/loyalty-marketing/
An incredible strategy doesn’t rely upon splendid tactics for progress. On the off chance that the thought is sufficient, you can get by with fair tactic execution.
wow great blog,i found it while reading yahoo news
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