However, have you ever been inspired by something and fired off a quick email to marketing, saying ‘I’ve been thinking we should try TikTok’ or ‘What can we do to make our posts go viral?’ That’s the sort of thing that derails a strategy. 

Not that it’s always wrong – after all, you know your business better than anyone, and ultimately, you drive the direction of travel, BUT any strategic change takes time and it’s not always the most logical move (sorry)! 

Trust the process

There are a million and one new shiny things waved in front of our faces every day – looking at you, LinkedIn - from new SEO tactics (some of which take up to six months to take effect) to courses promising fool-proof ways to tricking the algorithms. All great stuff, but with so many sweets to add to the pick and mix, strategy development can soon descend into chaos, and become a masterclass in throwing shit, and hoping some of it sticks. 

Your marketing lead should have a plan in place to move through the year, hitting goals and getting you to where you want to be. The tactics they will employ along the way will be guiding your business towards that end goal, and you would hope that they have considered all the options whilst developing that strategy…. If they haven’t included a tactic, that’s likely because it won’t advance the process, isn’t within budget, or has a crappy ROI.

By requesting that something is then woven in, you risk having to slam the brakes onto things that WOULD provide a return, in order for your marketing team to deliver on things that are frankly, a flash in the pan. 

Keeping your strategy on track

There is always a pressure to deliver something, and deliver it fast. But without a clear foundation to work from, with plans that you are confident will perform as you expect, you may as well chuck the marketing budget down the drain. 

You cannot build a successful marketing strategy without an understanding of where you want it to take your business. Anything that’s added in subsequently should compliment the answers, and if it doesn’t, it’ll just be a stick in the spokes of your progress. 

I always want to understand: 

• What you want your marketing to achieve? Are you looking to build awareness, drive direct sales, gather leads, online engagement? 
• Who are we talking to? Existing clients, new? Do you know what their passion points are? How do you speak to them currently? Do they have any weird quirks I need to know about (always interesting :-S) 
• Is there anything we really need to shout about? What’s your point of difference that makes you stand out? Why should anyone give a monkey’s about what you have to say to them?
• What journey will your customers to take off the back of your marketing? Are they engaging with a sales team, or the sales team engaging with them? Following links to purchase? Talking to friends about the brand? 
• What’s the budget? And is there anything coming down the tracks that could have an impact on this?
• What does a good result look like to you? And likewise, what does a crap one look like? 

Without the answers to these questions, I could still deliver a strategy. Hell, I could deliver an AMAZING strategy. But it quite possibly wouldn’t deliver anything you were wanting, so that’d make it a pretty crap result for your business. And it might cost you 10x what you wanted to spend. Throw into the mix a few random tactics, and you’re marketing has completely derailed. 

In short, want a decent return on your marketing strategy? My advice would be to scope it, draft it, stick to it – and trust the process. The shiny shit will still be there next year.