Strategy vs Tactics: What's the Difference and How They Work Together
There's a lot of talk these days about marketing strategy and marketing tactics. It can be confusing to know the difference between the two, and even more confusing to know how they work together. In this post, we'll clear up the confusion, giving you a basic and straightforward overview. Plus we'll show you how marketing strategy and marketing tactics fit together like puzzle pieces to help your business achieve its goals.
Think of a Marketing strategy as a big-picture plan for achieving your marketing goals. It's the roadmap that tells you where you're going. Marketing tactics are the specific actions you take to achieve your marketing goals. They're the day-to-day, nitty-gritty details of your marketing plan. If the strategy is the roadmap to where you are going, the tactics are the vehicle you use to get there.
What is a Marketing Strategy?
A marketing strategy is a plan that helps you achieve your marketing (and ultimately business) goals.
Your marketing strategy should be based on a solid understanding of your business goals, your target audience, and their needs and wants. Once you have that foundation in place, you can start to develop a plan for how to reach your target customers and achieve your business goals.
So what are Marketing tactics? Once you have a solid marketing strategy in place, it's time to start thinking about tactics. Marketing tactics are the specific actions you take to achieve your marketing goals. They're the day-to-day, nitty-gritty details of your marketing plan.
Some common marketing tactics include things like creating and running ads, writing blog posts, sending email newsletters, and posting on social media. The key is to choose marketing tactics that are aligned with your overall marketing strategy. For example, if your target customers are females aged between 18 and 30 that are interested in anti-aging skincare, then you are not going to put a newspaper ad in Men's Health to talk to them, are you?
Can I have one without the other?
You can have marketing tactics without a marketing strategy, but you cannot have a marketing strategy without marketing tactics.
A marketing tactic is just one part of your marketing plan. It's a specific action that you take to achieve your marketing goals. But if you don't have a plan for how to achieve your goals, then those tactics are just random and not likely to be effective.
On the other hand, a marketing strategy is worthless without marketing tactics. A marketing strategy is your roadmap. It tells you where you're going, but it doesn't tell you how to get there. The marketing tactics are the vehicle that will take you from point A to point B.
The bottom line is that marketing strategy and marketing tactics are two sides of the same coin. They both play an important role in helping businesses achieve their marketing goals. But it's important to understand the difference between the two, and how they work together.
Marketing strategy is all about figuring out the "what" of your marketing plan. What are your marketing goals? Who are your target customers? And marketing tactics are all about the "how." How will you execute your marketing strategy? What specific actions will you take to reach your target customers and achieve your marketing goals?
The best marketing plans have a healthy mix of both strategy and tactics. So don't get too bogged down in the details of tactics without first taking a step back to develop a solid marketing strategy. And don't get too caught up in your marketing strategy without thinking about how you're going to execute it. The two go hand-in-hand, and both are important for businesses that want to achieve their marketing goals.
Not sure where to start with your marketing strategy? We can help! At Holla, we have years of experience creating stellar marketing strategies and can help your businesses develop a marketing plan that gets results.
