The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics—and Everything Else

I’ll be honest—back in college, I often confused strategy with tactics (and all the other marketing jargon 🤦‍♀️).

Strategy is a carefully developed game plan to crush your goals and gain a competitive edge.

It’s based on comprehensive research and analysis of the 3 C's: competitors, customers/target market, and company (in short).

Unfortunately, a lot of entrepreneurs and businesses (I'm guilty of this too) start with tactics like: email, events, social media posts, or ads...without any clear strategy or plan behind it.

The results? Confusion, frustration and not enough sales! 😩

Unless you're like me and GEEK OUT on strategy, creating a plan can be overwhelming. Not to mention, it's extremely time-consuming.

BUT...it's so worth it. IMHO, building a solid strategy is the smartest investment of your time—or money if you can outsource it—you can make.

So where should you start? Great question 😂

Here's the bones (bare-bones) of a strategic plan:

1. Research—this should be 50% (at least) of your plan

2. Goals & Objectives

3. A clearly defined target market (customer avatars), or two...or three...

4. Messaging

5. Tactics—New Products (website launch, courses, goods/services); Content (blogs, videos); Digital (emails, ads, funnels); Events (attend community events or host your own); Media (PR); Network (chamber, referral-based groups, Facebook groups); Partners (non-compete, same audience); Premise (website/physical space); Print (ads, fliers); and Social Media

6. Track—How do you plan to measure your success?

BONUS—3 Pro Tips:

1. Create your plan based on your goals, your budget, your strengths and your bandwidth.

2. Think of your strategic plan as a living, breathing document that you can tweak as needed (and, you WILL need to tweak it).

3. Save this post for when you’re ready, or outsource your strategy to a pro like me😉

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