There are many misconceptions about the meaning of “strategy”. You may find people using the word “strategically” to describe critical decision making, or using a specific “tactic” to achieve a favorable outcome.
Believe it or not, it’s much simpler than that.
Every business needs a strategy – even donut shops! No matter your industry, we’ll help you understand the difference between marketing strategies and tactics so you can get ahead of the competition. In this article, we’ll use a fictitious donut shop to illustrate the key differences and help you apply these tips to your own unique business.
Need help creating a marketing strategy for 2022? Want to understand the difference between strategy and tactics and how they can both work for your business? Contact Next! Ad Agency today.
What IS the Difference Between a Strategy and a Tactic?
Before we dive into executing a marketing strategy, we need to make sure the strategy we create is not a tactic. Starting with the fictitious donut shop, a strategy would be to increase a new business line: beverages by 15% in 2022.
Tactics are actions that a business owner takes to support their overall strategy. For consistency, we will continue with our fictitious donut shop; the established marketing strategy is to increase revenue in beverage sales. Their tactics should support this strategy, but not completely forget the roots of its business: donuts.
The Power of Social Media
Organic social media posts can effectively generate buzz about donuts in 2022 – or any product and service!
Turn your iPhone’s camera to portrait mode and take some first-hand photos of some of the new donuts you’ve made. In today’s world, everyone with a smartphone can take stunning photos.
Don’t forget – the strategy with our donut shop is to increase beverage sales by 15%. For your own business, you could spend marketing dollars and create a paid social media campaign for Instagram or other social media platforms. This would be a tactic.
The donut shop could announce the addition of beverages to their menu and get this message in front of potential customers who are NOT following them. Perhaps, they could add a promo code to the Instagram post for 50% off of one of their specialty donuts, when you buy a drink!
The goal of this blog is to give readers a complete understanding of the crucial difference between creating a marketing strategy and creating tactics for ANY business. Want to learn more about this topic? Contact Next! Ad Agency or keep reading!
How Do You Create A Marketing Strategy For Your Business?
You should keep a marketing strategy in mind for the entire year or whatever timeline you have established. With that being said, make sure that your strategy is something that you see as a crucial area that needs to be improved upon.
Your strategy should be smart. This sentence is two-fold. Of course, your strategy should have an intelligent and well-thought-out plan, but it should also be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely (S.M.A.R.T.).
Using Smart Goals To Determine Your Strategy
To continue with our donut shop example, let’s say there’s a specialty donut shop in Austin, TX. The owner should determine a marketing strategy with a SMART goal. Their revenue for 2021 is just about to hit $1 million by year-end. For 2022, their marketing strategy could be to increase revenue to $1.25M by the end of 2022.
- Is it measurable? Yes.
- Is it achievable? With some fresh tactics, it sure is.
- Can my donut business increase its revenue by 25% in 365 days? It seems realistic in a booming economy like Austin’s!
- Last but not least, is it timely? They can set the goal of their marketing strategy to one month, one quarter, six months, or a year.
Does creating a marketing strategy for 2022 sound doable yet? Get in touch with us today and we’d be happy to give you some direction.
Coming Up With New And Fresh Tactics
To keep things consistent, let’s keep up with the donut shop in Austin, TX. In 2021, the owner decided to spend marketing dollars on a billboard in downtown Austin. She also decided to make over-the-top and expensive coupon/business cards, giving customers 10% off when they spend $20. These are bad examples of tactics.
One could argue that this donut shop in Austin, TX, had a million-dollar year because of a combination of word-of-mouth advertising and the likeability of a specialty donut shop in a young and hip city. They would be making a great point.
Creating Tactics that Support Your Strategy
A marketing tactic should be an action you take with the intention of gaining more revenue to support your overall marketing strategy. You might think there’s more to it, but there’s not!
You may be thinking to yourself, “But, a tactic could be to gain more followers on social media!” Yes. This, in turn, will gain more revenue!
Remember – your tactics are all part of the bigger plan: your marketing strategy. If you hire a marketing and advertising firm like Next! Ad Agency and these tactics are constantly changing and upgrading, you can meet the goals of your strategy, and who knows; You might even surpass them. Creating these marketing tactics is what our social media specialists do.
Drive Growth Year After Year by Keeping Your Strategy Updated
2022 is a brand new year. Ideally, your strategy should be determined before December 2021. For the specialty donut shop, is having a marketing strategy thats dedicated to increasing the revenue from their new beverage menu the best strategy to increase revenue? Weigh the pros and cons to make sure you’re not missing out on a different opportunity for 2022.
We want all of our clients at Next! Ad Agency to succeed and grow. Creating a marketing strategy is easier than most people think. Just make sure it’s SMART, in each and every way.
Are you interested in learning more about marketing and advertising for your business? Stay tuned to our blog or contact a digital marketing specialist at Next! Ad Agency today!
