Hey. It’s Bob. And in this episode of Real Retail TV, we’re going to explore how to dial in your marketing strategy.
So first of all, let’s talk about what strategy really is. And there are so many definitions of strategy. But for the sake of this conversation, let’s just say your strategy is where you put your marketing focus.
So the the point here is that when you have a focus, when you understand what you’re trying to say to your customers and to your prospects, saying it and where you say it and how you say it becomes so much more effective.
The marketing guru Jay Abraham says strategy makes tactics ten times more effective, and I absolutely agree with that statement.
So how you determine your strategy, your primary strategy, and you can have a couple, but for the sake of this conversation, let’s just make it one. Ask yourself, how would I describe my business the most, the best?
The the the most or the best are two great words.
So for instance, when I was in the toy business, our strategy was to be the most fun. We wanted our store to be the most fun. If you were a kitchenware store, you might make your strategy the most knowledgeable.
Right? This idea of most.
If you were, in the quilt business, you might use the word best. We have the best community of quilters. So do you see think about your strengths as a business. Think about how you present yourself to the world. Think about what you do that’s most effective, and then really, really focus on that. Make sure that everything you do reinforces that strategy.
Give you those examples.
So the toy business at the Mackinac kite company, our strategy was to be the most fun store in our towns. End of story, period.
Tactics, the things that we did that reinforced the strategy were things like we had this crazy fun in store experience.
If you walked into the store, we were gonna demonstrate things. If you were standing in front of a game table, we were gonna walk up and teach you. We just made sure that the energy in the store was really fun.
Your social media should reinforce the fact that you’re fun. Your emails should be fun. The promotions we did were fun so that when people thought of us, when people thought of the Mackinac kite company, they thought fun. You see, strategy makes tactics more effective.
When you understand your strategy, the tactics seem to flow more naturally. It’s not a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of here, a little bit of there. You have focus. So let’s talk about kitchenware. If I had a kitchenware store, a cooking store, a strategy could be the most knowledgeable.
See, because that would really reinforce how you would build your business. So what tactics could follow that strategy?
Well, social media could certainly be, you share recipes, you share cooking techniques, you share with your community, the latest and the greatest to help them see how they can cook better in their homes, you know, so you could create a YouTube channel where you teach people how to cook.
The tactics always follow the strategy.
And then let’s take a look at that quilt example.
So in the quilt example, the strategy that I shared could be that we have the best community.
Quilters love to hang out with each other. They love to feel like they’re part of something. All people do, but I’m just using this as an example for a quote business.
If the strategy is to have the best community, the tactics could be your social media features the people in your community, that you could have regular retreats. You could have lots, a really robust, commute a schedule of classes.
You would do things that bring people together. You would do things your tactics would show people, both the people who are already in your community and the people who are thinking about becoming your customers, that they would belong to a bigger group, that they would be part of a community.
So let’s go back and review it, this idea. Number one, what’s the most? What’s the best? Think about what you do really, really well.
Identify it, state it, and recognize that this is a strategy, that this is a way that you can make your marketing more effective.
Reinforce that statement whatever it may be.
This will make your marketing so much more make the message so much clearer. It will really, really make your life a lot easier.
So the final thing I wanna share about, strategy is a lot of people mistake tactics and platforms for strategy.
Here is what is not strategy.
Social media is not a strategy. It is a tactic.
Promotions are not a strategy.
Promotions are a tactic. Email marketing is not a strategy.
It is a tactic.
Those are three examples, three prominent examples of tactics that if you keep focused on the strategy will reinforce that statement that expresses your strategy.
So your homework for today is to think about it. Have you articulated one, two, maybe three? But I like one.
One strategy that you can hang your hat on. One strategy that you can that that you can lead your tactics with. So write it down, bring it to your team, see what they think, and then start recognizing that the work that you do, the tactics that you’re employing are there to reinforce that strategy because, again, your tactics will become so much more effective when you have a clearly articulated strategy.
I hope you found this helpful. I would love to hear what your strategy is. Put it down in the comments below. And, Bob, and we’ll see you next week.