Are you kidding, Drayton? A marketing strategy in three minutes? Why not? The other day I read (not for the first time) that you can write an ebook in seven days.
All I can say is that it takes me a damn sight longer to write stuff – and I am very, very quick indeed. So I suggest your e-book will be a bunch of s**t and we have strayed deep into Flying Pig County.
But this won’t stop me making wild promises. Because what you are about to read – which will take less than three minutes – may well help you to have a really good 2014.
I am damn sure it will make you think – quite a lot probably. But that’s not a bad thing, is it?
First of all, the trouble with strategy is – as Richard Rumelt’s excellent, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy points out – that hardly anyone has the faintest idea what the word means.
This is despite the fact that many of the ignoramuses have it in their fatuous job titles – usually followed by the equally absurd “officer”.
But enough chit-chat.
Here’s what you need to think about when you plan your strategy. The first point is the best summary I ever read of what you should be asking yourself all the time.
1. “To whom are you offering what ultimate advantage?” – Irving Wunderman
2. Why should people choose you? What can you/do you do that no-one else does? Can you do anything better than your competitors?
3. Why would people NOT choose you? What do others do better?
4. Have you tried being your own customer? Have you tried being your competitors’ customer?
5. How can you improve on what they do?
6. Define your ideal customers
7. Where and when will you find them most easily?
8. How and where are you going to collect their names and addresses?
9. What incentives can you offer to encourage them to give you them?
10. How many excuses can you find to talk to them – not about you, but about what they really care about?
11. How many ways can you communicate with them?
12. Which will give you the best return on your money?
I made that list this morning in reply to a post which mentioned strategy on my http://askdrayton.com/ members’ site. I rather dashed it off, so I hope nothing important is missing.
If it made sense to you – who knows? – the members’ site may too.
Tomorrow I shall give you a short video which tells you what you can learn from a Turkish carpet dealer.
I guarantee you will be:
1. Amused.
2. Instructed.
3. Surprised.
Till then.
Great list! Defining the difference(s) between strategy and action plan/campaign is an important piece of this, too. It is easy to get the two confused, and what most consider strategy is actually a project plan. Without strategy, the best campaign is basically a map to nowhere.
Actually the book, which everyone should read, points out that people – and he frequently cites heads of large firms, in embarrassing and hilarious detail – confuse an intention, aim or desire with a strategy. E.g. That saying “we will be the best at XYZ” or “We will become the largest ABC by 2014” or “We will be the most helpful blah blah” are strategies.
It has added interest to me because of the way many firms mistake boasts for advertising. It also reminds me of Confucius’s observation that if he were given power over the Chinese empire the first thing he would do is make sure language were used correctly – because if not everything goes wrong.
I always thought strategy was the set of actions or steps you choose to achieve a goal. Maybe these are ‘tactics’ and not strategy. But are tactics just another term for ‘action plan’? It is very confusing for me.
I may never understand the proper meaning of the term ‘strategy’. The very word seems ambiguous, even when I look it up in a dictionary.
On the plus side, I avoid using those words when I talk to people because I don’t even know what they mean. Maybe it’s for the best that I am slow to learn some business lingo.
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