Marketing Tactics, Strategies and Objectives

What's the difference?

Marketing Tactics, Strategies, and Objectives

A common question is this: what's the difference between marketing objectives, strategies and tactics?

Marketing tactics are activities to achieve a short-term aim.
Marketing strategies are longer-term and unify the tactical activities.
Marketing objectives are specific and measurable.

Marketing strategies and tactics are what give your business a competitive edge.

Most companies want to achieve the same things:

Get customers
Keep customers
Get existing customers to buy more
Offload unprofitable customers
Create customer advocates (people who refer others and spread positive word-of-mouth about you for free)

Marketing tactics are activities

They’re all the things you do to achieve a particular short-term aim (like a coupon inserted in customer invoices for a free trial for a new product, a ¼-page ad in the local paper every week, attending a particular trade show). Tactics are short-term and tactical.

TIP: Think of marketing tactics like parts of a meal (appetizers, side dishes, main dish, drinks, dessert).

Marketing strategies are more considered and longer-term

They are meant to last for a season, a year or several years. They’re meant to differentiate and unify the tactical activities.

Examples of marketing strategies

Offer a guaranteed delivery time of 30 minutes
Focus on marketing to moms with children living at home
Be seen in the business press as the expert about our product category
Establish a customer loyalty program to reduce switching
Offer prizes in kids meals
Easy online giving of $40 a month (for a non-profit)
Using customer testimonials to answer “why choose us”
Focus all messages and the customer experience on being the easiest place to find and buy what you need

A strategy “connects the dots” (the tactics) into a more compelling marketing program. Tactics are determined after the marketing strategy and objectives are set.

Marketing objectives are specific and measurable

Know this: Most companies have the same marketing objectives

Increase sales by X% this quarter
Reduce switching this year from X% to X%
Increase sales to existing customers for product line A by 10%
Attract 2,400 qualified leads by this date

**It’s the marketing strategies and tactics that give a marketing program a competitive edge.**

From our experience:

It’s best to focus on what marketing strategies will most meaningfully differentiate your product/service/company/non-profit. Brainstorm. Get inspired by looking at what are considered some of the best marketing strategies of all time. Get feedback from customers and prospects through informal or formal research on what strategies are best. Then focus on those. There should only be a few.
Try different tactics and combinations of tactics. Track and measure to learn what works and why. Remember, it may be the combination of tactics that works, not just one thing.
If you want to be respected, be like sales. Make marketing objectives specific and measurable within a particular time period. Measure and report how the marketing program performed "against quota." This is how you’ll gain respect from others and learn what works and what doesn’t to improve next time.
You win with tactics. A great tactic is what customers, prospects and employees remember. And what creates "free marketing" (an idea going viral and traveling through word-of-mouth and the media picking up on it).
If your marketing gets posted on YouTube (in a good way) and gets thousands of views (all for free), you know you’ve got a great tactic.

An example to help understand strategy, tactics, and objectives: You go to hear the symphony orchestra play.

The executives of the symphony, along with the conductor, have determined what the theme will be, when the performances will be, how many people need to attend to break even after all costs. They are setting the objectives and goals and success metrics.
The conductor determines what musical score will be used, how it will be interpreted, what musicians will be selected and what their roles will be. The conductor is determining the "winning strategy."
The musicians read the music and play according to how the conductor directs them. They are the "tactics" (activities).

You need the conductor to "connect the dots" of the individual players and to determine the "winning strategy." But what the people in the audience respond to is the music – what they hear from all the individual musicians.

It’s similar with marketing. The ads, email newsletter, trade show booth, brochure, website are all like individual musicians. Who is the conductor bringing them all together in a coordinated way?

What do you have to say? Share your comments below or give advice about marketing objectives, strategies and tactics.

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