In recently reading Alex M H Smith’s “No Bullsh*t Strategy” he shared some interesting thoughts on strategies versus marketing tactics. In essence, his approach is that strategies should be something you set once and run for years, while the specific tactics may change quite often.
Specifically, he says:
“What you need to get comfortable with then, is this blend of stasis and movement: stasis at the strategic level, movement at the executional level. A helpful way of visualising this can be done with something I call “multi-layer pacing”, which is a fancy way of showing that the more strategic an element of the business is the less it changes, and the more tactical an element is the more it changes.“
He puts the various company efforts along a continuum, with static items on the left, moving toward more frequently changing items on the right:
Strategy –> Brand –> Product –> Operations –> Marketing
That’s not to say that things like strategy and branding should never change, because sometimes they might need to, but the further to the right you go you should be updating more often.
Apple is a great example of this.
- Their core strategy has remained essentially the same for 50 years
- Their brand has been refined a few times
- They unveil a new product every decade or so
- They change operations frequently to add new features
- Their marketing changes constantly to showcase product revisions and new trends
Once you develop a great strategy, run with it. When you have great marketing you can also run with it, but you should measure and adapt far more frequently.
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