When Strategy and Tactics Fight

How well do you understand the difference between strategy and tactics? Do you find them fighting each other for bragging rights? 

At some companies, these two activities collide all the time. Managers want to jump in and solve problems when there isn't consensus about what problem you are trying to solve.

It took me many years to fully understand the difference and to learn to think strategically. By not jumping right into the tactics, I have gained a clearer understand of the problem before figuring out how to solve the problem. The following are 3 ideas to help you be a more strategic thinker as a marketing professional.

ASK THE QUESTION, WHAT PROBLEM ARE WE SOLVING? This is such a great question to ask to help insure that you understand and have an agreement about the real issue at hand. If your team is trying to decide among creating a video, printing a brochure or putting up billboards, you have jumped into the world of tactics. 

A strategic conversation might say: “Our customers see us as not adding real value. How can we change the mind of our customer?”  How you change their mind, plunges you into tactics of how to solve this problem. A simple way to think about this is that your strategy defines the goal that moves you in the direction that you want the company to go. A tactic helps you leverage the resources and tools at hand to get the job done.

RECOGNIZE THAT STRATEGIES LAST LONGER THAN TACTICS:  A strategy is usually a longer-term proposition than a tactic. In some companies, strategies are set for a year or multi-year period.  Tactics tend to be much more short-lived and immediate. So a strategy might be, “we want to influence several key department heads at our customer who influence a purchase”.  A tactic might be an email communication, a mailer or an event tailored to help you connect with one of those people in Q4. 

STRATEGIES ARE GUIDED BY INTELLECT, TACTICS REQUIRE MUSCLE.  A strategy can be based on research, market insights or competitive analysis. It usually comes from understanding market structure using SWOT analysis or other similar tools. It may blend gut instinct with some specific market data. 

"Taking the river is a strategy. The boat is a tactic."

A strategic idea might be that our company’s products are only used by the very high end of the market because we are perceived as expensive. A tactical approach to solving this problem is to take what we understand from the research and find ways to dispel this myth. 

For example, a tactic might be to put together on our website a dozen testimonials of modest, small-mid size companies who use our product as they tell their story why they think our products are reasonably priced.

Breathe and Ask a Question

It is so easy to be part of meetings where you jump into solving problems with a stream of consciousness of ideas. My recommendation is take a deep breath and ask everyone to write down what problem you are all trying to solve. You may find that not everyone is trying to solve the same strategic problem and your team is just throwing ideas at the wind. 

Until you get agreement and have a clearly defined problem, you are wasting time on a laundry list of tactics. Learn to think strategically before you start throwing tactical punches. 

Cartoon by Rich Goildel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Need help sorting the wheat from the chaff? Contact me through this link on Clarity where you can learn more about marketing coaching by the moment. 

All things MARKeting

This past week, I got to host Nomacorc’s 5^th Wine Marketing Exchange event. We developed this series, held twice per year in California to bring interesting marketing speakers, insights and ideas to the wine marketing community. Our theme this time was “Storytelling: How to stay top of mind and close to heart". 

Photos courtesy of Paul Mabray

I gave the opening introduction to frame the day. Since being close to heart was part of the theme, I told the story of my younger daughter Fanny and her path from cooking with me in our kitchen when she was a little girl to winning the Rachael Ray’s Great American Cookbook Competition last May. I shared an emotional story filled with rich and vivid memories. My purpose was to show an example of how a beloved brand can be created. 

But getting to spend time with Mark Schaefer and his wonderful wife Rebecca was the real treat. Mark is a marketing professional whose work has inspired, challenged and excited me. He writes one of the leading blogs on marketing called Grow, teaches marketing at Rutgers and is a marketing consultant in demand. He is also the author of several fine books on marketing and along with Tom Webster, has a witty and spontaneous twice-monthly podcast called the Marketing Companion.

Mark W. Schaefer and Jeffrey Slater at Nomacorc's Wine Marketing Conference

We spent several hours talking at dinner and I think we recognized in each other a real common worldview of marketing.  

Most important of all is that we both are proud of and love the marketing profession. 

We think this is an absolutely wonderful time to do what we both do every day.  I believe Mark’s comment was that we appear to be from the same marketing pod. Cerebral and intellectual yet passionate about making the worse pun possible and finding humanity in every moment. We both celebrate ideas, insights and a fresh new way of seeing a marketing challenge. And we believe deeply in the idea of being more human in our work. Mark's website identifies three pillars: Marketing, Social Media and Humanity. 

Marketing with Mark

Mark spoke to our audience of senior marketing professionals for about 45 minutes and took questions from the audience.  He shared his views on content shock which we are all experiencing in the tsunami of information flowing toward us through social media and other channels of communication. As he discussed the next levels of advanced technology coming at us, the little clicker to advance the slides kept moving too fast and skipped ahead. It was a wonderfully ironic and human moment that Mark laughed at as he kept telling stories and sharing ideas on our theme.

Mark shared the story of the wine client he worked with in Provence who use video to tell his story. As the 601st winery licensed to make rose in Provence, Steven Cronk had a real challenge with his Mirabeau brand. Using social media as to differentiate his brand, a video went viral about opening a wine with his shoe. This video has over 8 millions views. To read the full story visit Mark's blog post about Mirabeau  or go to the Youtube video. 

Mark closed with a reference to one of his favorite teachers and thought-leaders Dr. Robert Cialdini, who when asked how you scale the work Mark proposes in larger corporations, the advice was BE MORE HUMAN. I couldn't agree more.

If you aren't familiar with Mark’s work, please check out all things Marketing at grow. Get it? All things Marketing. 

Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun. 











~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looking for some marketing coaching? Check out this link on Clarity where you can learn more. People say I look much younger than my age but I am dressed for success.

Customer Disservice

On a recent trip back from New Jersey, I ended up at the Charlotte Airport. Having consumed a liter of water, I needed to find the bathroom once I got off the plane. Little did I know that I was walking into a public bathroom with an attendant who proudly proclaimed:

“Welcome to my very clean bathroom.  I keep it nice and clean for you. How can I help you”

He said it seven times during the course of my visit. Over and over and over and over and over and over again. Truth be told, I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. 

With a tip jar on the counter surrounded by free hits of Listerine and some hard candies, I understand that this gentleman was trying to encourage people to tip him for keeping the bathroom clean and handing me a paper towel to dry my hands.

But I feel like this was taking customer service a bit too far. It felt odd and inappropriate to be hear his announcement repeated several times as I used the restroom. 

I don’t begrudge the man.  What I do question is why the airport feels the need to have a person in that room for hours on end in what felt like panhandling.  Why not pay him a better wage. 

Does the Charlotte Airport believe this is where I want an improved customer experienced? 

Yes, I want a clean bathroom. No, I don’t need someone telling me this seven times during my visit to the urinal. And his insistence on repeating the same message over and over was annoying not welcoming. Others in the room all looked around as if to ask, are we on Candid Camera? 

The Wrong Kind of Aid

A few days later, I needed a few things from the drug store. I have two choices, the Rite Aid or the Walgreens.  I avoid the Rite Aid because every time I enter, the cashier calls out, “Welcome to Rite Aid” in the most disingenuous voice possible.  It is as if she is saying, my boss makes me say this. It was not authentic; it was off-putting and worst of all it was not how human beings interact.  

Hey Mr. Rite Aid, don’t tell the cashier what to say. Just make sure she makes people feel welcomed in an honest and sincere fashion.

You are Welcomed

If you run a retail store or an online call center, how do you train your customer service people to be human beings and not automatons? Someone I know who does this for a living says he has  a few simple rules when he hires people for these types of jobs: 

• Are they already friendly?
• Are they naturally outgoing and comfortable with strangers?
• Do they make you feel uncomfortable or weird?
• Are they overbearingly polite? 

It is hard to train people to become friendly, outgoing and natural in conversation.  But it helps if you can start with someone who understand that their job is the so important because it is the welcome and smiling face that greets you when you begin your engagement with their brand. It is so important yet often the person doing this isn’t well-paid or encouraged to be themselves.

Whole Greetings

One company that has figured this out is Whole Foods. I always feel a significantly different welcome from their cashiers than at Harris Teeter, Food Lion or other traditional grocery chains. They take time to find people who are not identical. They hire people who are genuine and authentic in how they approach customers.  It rarely feels forced. It almost always feels, well – natural.

Acing It! 

Ace Hardware is another company that gets it. When I walk in the door, they have a person greet me and escort me to the aisle where they stock that special thing I need. They are helpful which is really what I care about most. I’m not a curmudgeon but I’m not there to chat. I want help finding what I need and I want to get in and out quickly. I don't like cloying, insincere greetings but I do like helpful hardware men (and women). 

How are you greeting your customers when they engage with your brand? What type of training does everyone at the front lines get and does it live up to the standards you have set?

Cartoon courtesy of www.TwistedPeel.com Please visit their site for more laughs. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the best customer service on the planet, visit my 87 year old Mom Bea who is shown here making whitefish salad for the holidays. (the video on Youtube has the full recipe and is guaranteed to make you smile). 

Looking for some marketing coaching? Check out this link on Clarity where you can learn more. 

Unzipping Your Voice

Listen to any podcast on marketing or go to any conference on content creation, and you’ll hear everyone talking about story telling. Storytelling is the oxygen that brands are breathing these days. In fact I am heading out to California to host a conference on this very topic: How story telling can help your brand be top of mind and close to the heart. We are fortunate to have Mark Schaefer, author, educator and successful marketing consultant presenting a keynote. Check out Mark's' work at Grow. 

But exactly how do you go about telling your story in a compelling way and how can you open up your brand voice to the world? 

Here are six thought starters to help you begin this process:

OBSERVE AND LISTEN: I like to look at the brands I compete with and understand what type of story they are telling? Are they talking about their features (faster, smaller, thinner or low in carbs?). Understand the competitive landscape so you can see how your story might resonate. Keep in mind you don’t just compete within your category but within your high usage occasion. So wine marketers compete with craft beer for that at home consumption or what gets consumed at dinner. And listen to your competitors voice and the stories they are telling. Whose voice is it you hear when they talk? Is it pushy, empathic or unclear? 

BRAND ESSENCE: What is the most essential aspect of your brand that your customer would describe?  If you drew a few concentric circles to represent the structure of your brand - on the outer circle of your brand would be features. But as you get to the center – the essence – what do you stand for? What big promise have you made to your consumers that allow them to trust you? Are you committed to making a sustainable and organic product and to manage your brand that way too?  Often one word (or at most a phrase) should exist in the center.

KNOW YOUR VOICE: When your customers close their eyes, whose voice do you want them to hear? Is it the wisdom of your grandmother who started your brand 75 years ago? Is it the sound of an overworked parent in search of peace and calm through technology? Is it the vibrant voice of a loud and brash tween with streaks running through their hair and tats on their arms?  Who speaks for you? If you created a commercial, whose voice would speak?

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: Who are you speaking to? I use a different voice when I talk to my mother than I do when I talk to a teenager. What is your audience looking for from you when you speak? Ideas, enlightenment, entertainment, calm, excitement, etc? Does your audience learn best when things are more formal or relax? Are they more male or female? Are they overworked and have short-attention spans or looking for more elaborate information, or both at different times? When and where does your audience learn about products and brands in your category? 

TONE: A brand voice exists with a certain tone and temperament. Is it upbeat or sedentary? Is it protective or private? Is it strident or laid back? Tone sets the table for how you want the consumer to feel as they absorb your message and listen to you talk with them. Think of the different tones you heard from various teachers in high school or college. Some were brash and other whispered. They all sent different messages to frame how you learned what they had to say. Pay attention to the tone of your voice. 

ASPIRATION:  A brand voice is like a tour guide taking you somewhere. The airline pilot in their soft and calming voice is telling you not just that you are at 30,000 feet but that you are in the hands of a safe protector who will take care of you. The voice of the personal trainer is pushing you along to get you in shape and a better physical body. The yoga instructor has a voice that helps you work toward a place of peace, tranquility and inner awareness. All of these voices help you transcend where you are towards a moment that is approaching. They are leading you somewhere on a journey. And in most cases, brands are moving you toward something you feel and aspire to achieve.

A Room Full of People 

A wise marketing colleague said to me a few years ago, that in searching for your brand voice, think of a room full of people. As each person speaks, they deliver a message in different ways. Some are outgoing and loud. Some are quiet and soft-spoken. A few are exaggerating the truth while others are meek and timid correcting every last detail of what they say. Some voices are deep and sonorous while a few are high and lilting. As you look around the room, whose voice comes closest to what you want to say to your customers.

Finally, another interesting way to help you find your brand’s voice is to think of famous people like celebrities, politicians and those who are well-known to the public. Is there a person who epitomizes the voice of your brand? Is Tom Hanks the voice of trust and friendliness that you want to emulate? Do you want an experienced, cocky rock star like Mick Jagger to be telling your story? Would a funny successful woman like Tina Fey be the voice of your brand if you could afford to sign her up? Or do you want to be seen as an ironic, witty and in your face brand where Sarah Silverman would be the perfect spokesperson.

The purpose of this exercise isn't to sign a million dollar star to be the voice of your brand, but to use that celebrity as a helpful way of identifying how you want your audience to hear your brand. 

In my snack food business days, we hired Macho Man Randy Savage, a well-known professional wrestler to be the voice of our brand. Literally and figuratively.  Like our product Slim Jim, Randy was engaged in a profession that was bold, brash and not-quite real; just like our actual dried smoked meat stick. He captured the pure irreverence of the brand and helped us stand apart from boring, wimpy snacks.  When we closed our eyes, we wanted Randy telling our story.

So if you are in search of how to tell your story, start with the question, who should be the voice and persona who represents our brand. Let your brand story come from understanding how your audience absorbs and learns information and how you want to world to see you. 

Who is speaking for your brand today? I'd love to hear your examples in the comment section below. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Need a little excitement? Snap into a conversation with me through Clarity, a site that allows you to set up appointments with experts by the minute. I'm happy to coach and advise if I can be of help on marketing and start ups. Last week I helped coach someone who was struggling with issues related to focus of his time and energy to grow a baking business. How can I help you? 

SurveyMonkey Time for My Readers

It is survey monkey time! 

While listening to Michael Hyatt's wonderful podcast this past Sunday morning, I realized how helpful it would be to ask questions of the readers who subscribe or visit my blog every day. Check out Michael's work at http://michaelhyatt.com/

Since 2009, I have written almost 400 posts and yet never considered how valuable it could be to get input from you who spend a little time each week with my thoughts and ideas. It illustrates how useful a marketing coach can be - even to someone who is a marketing professional. Hat tip to you Michael! 

My goal is to help make my blog even more helpful to the thousands of readers who tend to be involved in marketing. Some are novices and others are very experienced experts but my posts have struck a chord with many who have been willing to come back over and over again to read my work. For that I am truly grateful. 

If you have been a reader since day 1 or this is your first visit, your views and opinions will help me shape this blog. This survey has just 10 questions so it should take only a few minutes to complete. 

If you take the survey, you can get a free copy of my book in PDF form called UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES OF MARKETING. This is a small gift from me to you to say thank you. There are instructions in the survey on how to get the free eBook. 

Just follow the link to the survey. And thank you Survey Monkey for making this so easy. 

Jeff 

TAKE THE READERS SURVEY

Show. Don't Tell.

The best way to change someone’s mind is to show them something, not to tell them. When my daughter’s were young, I could talk to them all day long about the type of boyfriend or future husband they should aspire to find. But the best way I could teach them this life lesson was by being loving toward them and toward my wife. Showing not telling. 

If I wanted them to learn the lesson of hard work, they could observe me and my daily work ethic and that lesson, over time, would sink into their own way to approach their work. They could observe both a mom and a dad, working hard every day, in our own ways and absorb our lesson better than any finger-wagging approach. 

Same in marketing

I don’t think this approach is any different in marketing or business communications. There was a wonderful article about the founder of the Minneapolis based advertising agency Fallon describing a great example in the Harvard Business Review. In the case study, Pat Fallon describes the problem that H&R block was having convincing people to switch tax preparers.  Apparently most of us are resistant to change tax preparers. It is just too much of a hassle. How can you motivate people to change their behavior? 

In the story, the agency came upon an idea where they would go to a town and offer to take a second look at tax returns for an entire community. They picked a city with a wonderful tie-in, Greenback, Tennessee to make the point.  They set up shop in a gymnasium and invited people in with their returns. They filmed the event and created a mini-documentary that they used in advertising. They found a big savings for the community of $14,683 dollars.

They didn't say they could save people money. They showed them.

How is your business showing its value proposition?  Have you found a way to demonstrate something you say all the time? Can you move from talking and get customers helping you tell your story? There is power in this lesson for marketers from small to mid to big sized businesses. 

1. Can you turn something you say into a demonstration that you can film? 
2. Don't get hung up on making it a fancy documentary. You can do wonders with an iPhone today and some basic editing software. 
3. Get your message on social media or in places where the message is relevant to the audience. 
4. Stop talking about what you do. Show it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeffrey Slater

MomentSlater 

Do you have a challenging marketing issue that should be as easy as sliced bread to communicate?  Perhaps you could use a marketing coach to help you show instead of tell your story. Connect with me through Clarity to schedule time to talk. 

This is from a photo of me with my daughter Fanny teaching a Hebrew School class how to bake challah in 1991. 

Voice of the Customer

Steve Mark is a guy who can’t pass up an opportunity for a bad pun. 

He runs a small but growing company specializing in a dice game called TENZi. He lists himself as the Dice President because if he were President, he couldn't make the same bad joke. If you call his voice mail, he encourage you to have a dice day. 

I'm a sucker for bad puns.

Steve knows quite a few things about humor, and marketing and advertising. For many years he and his friend Steve, were collectively known by all as The Steves from North Castle Partners, a now defunct advertising agency from Stamford, Connecticut. I sometimes wondered if they hadn't escaped from somewhere. 

The Steves were often tied up in their work.

Steve Mark (aka Good Steve) and his buddy (Steve Garbett AKA Bad Steve) were the genius at the core of the Slim Jim Advertising that we ran for many years. Under their guru Hal Rosen, they led the charge to bring insanity and craziness to the brand I helped grow for GoodMark Foods. If you have ever seen Slim Jim Guy and his antics, it gives new meaning to the name mad men and advertising.  

Eat Your Vegetables - A Slim Jim Commercial featuring Slim Jim Guy

That business had a compound growth rate of 19% during the time I was involved in giving the green light to many wild and crazy marketing campaigns. 

Today Steve (Good Steve) is on the other side of the table growing his own brand of unique products called TENZi. TENZI is a simple dice game that appears to have an addictive additive. Customers can’t get enough. Once the independent stores stock the product, it flies off the shelf. Although a young brand, things appear to be on a roll. (sorry)

The short video of voice mail messages from independent stores that Steve posted to YouTube is hilarious and brilliant. 

It’s a great lesson for how to make testimonials fun and motivating.  In Steve’s short voice mail video, he is targeting the independent mom and pop toy stores to convince them that their peers have bought the game and it sold like hotcakes. 

Taking actual voice message from customers allows Steve's customer to help sell his product to others. It shows how important it is, especially in a small business to use all the low-cost tools available. 

Unlike Slim Jim or other big brands, he isn't going to be spending millions of dollars on advertising, sponsorship and events. He has to make each marketing activity work hard to support the growth of his brand. 

Steve is not leaving his marketing to a roll of the dice. He is taking a creative approach to convincing other retailers to carry his product and that it will sell through. Have you ever used voice mail messages as part of your marketing communications? 

How are you sharing the successes that your customers are having using your products? 

My friend Steve has generously offered a 20% discount off of Tenzi to any MomentSlater readers who would like to place an order. You can go to www.tenzi.com  and use the promo code momentslater to get the discount. The promo is good through 12/31/14,

And have a dice day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeffrey Slater

MomentSlater 

Have a challenging marketing issue you are wrestling with? Perhaps you could use a marketing coach to help you put a choke hold on your brand. Connect with me through Clarity to schedule time to talk. 

This is from a photo shoot in 1995 with North Castle Partners in New Mexico. In the photo, Macho Man Randy Savage, Gorgeous George, Steve Mark, Steve Garbett and others from North Castle and the Slim Jim marketing team.