Should You Focus on Marketing Strategies or Tactics?

Marketing tactics vs. marketing strategy: Which is important for your business? Many businesses come to Mid-West Family La Crosse wanting help with singular marketing tactics to help grow their businesses, but our philosophy is that tactics don't work: Strategy does.

For marketing to be successful in the long term, you need a clear, holistic strategy. Tactics alone will not help propel the long-term growth you need for your brand. By focusing on strategy instead, many brands can reap consistent rewards.

Explaining the Difference Between Marketing Strategies and Tactics

A marketing strategy is a plan that helps you reach prospective customers, guide them through the sales funnel, and convert them to satisfied customers of your business. It focuses on long-term goals and a long perspective. It is a complete and comprehensive process.

Marketing tactics are the specific tools or solutions you use to help accomplish your marketing goals. They include a variety of efforts that help make up your overall strategy, like SEO, social media marketing, or radio ads.

Focusing on Marketing Strategies Over Tactics

There are many reasons why you should focus on marketing strategies rather than individual tactics.

1. It gives you a competitive advantage

Focusing on marketing strategies gives you an advantage over your competitors, who may just be using tactical marketing, primarily focusing on the short term.

2. Marketing strategies think big picture over small details

Instead of looking at the minor details of your marketing plan, focus on long-term, big-picture needs and plans. A proper marketing strategy has objectives, targeting, integration, a mix of channels and tools, structure, and performance monitoring.

3. Strategic marketing helps allocate resources more effectively

Each business has its own resources, budgets, and time to devote to marketing. An essential part of a marketing strategy is allocating resources for the most significant impact. When you focus on strategic marketing, resources go further.

4. Tactics may be a time/money waster without a strategy in place.

Your strategic marketing efforts, however, can help you guide your efforts more smoothly, allowing for an overall higher level of achievement.

5. Strategies are for the long game

Strategy includes developing objectives, visions, goals, measuring KPIs, and pivoting to improve in a continuous cycle. It helps keep the view of your long-term plans and desires. Tactics without a strategy may lack direction, objectives, and a comprehensive measurement system that will allow you to determine how you're doing. As a result, your team may struggle to accomplish its goals.

6. Branding comes from strategy

Marketing strategy defines preferences and behaviors through buyer personas, also known as customer avatars. Customers care deeply about the trust they can put in your brand. In fact, 46% of customers note that they're willing to pay more for brands they trust. Thanks to a comprehensive marketing strategy, you're better positioned to continue providing that key branding to your customers.

The continuity and cyclical nature of strategy are always consistent with your brand. That means you can continue to appeal to audiences in the same dependable way. Each time they interact with your brand, they will experience the same look, feel, and overall experience. As a result, customer appreciation will remain steady, and trust will continue to grow.

Are You Ready to Shift Your Focus to a Winning Marketing Strategy?

The shift to focusing on marketing strategy rather than marketing tactics alone can create significant differences for your brand. At Mid-West Family La Crosse, we aim to help our clients build successful multi-channel marketing strategies that enable them to accomplish their marketing goals and connect more effectively with their clients.