Strategy isn't a scary word

Ah, strategy. If there’s one word that strikes fear into the hearts of up-and-coming marketers, it’s this one.?

Next to upskilling and career progression, ‘how to do a marketing strategy’ is probably the most common topic I’ve found myself giving guidance on, both in and out of the office.?

When someone comes to me in a panic and says they’ve been asked to do a strategy but don’t know how to, this is the first thing I tell them:

A strategy is just a fancy word for a plan.?

Marketers are generally pretty good planners. We know how to get from Point A to Point B and the steps that will get us there. But for some reason, when the higher-ups ask to see that plan on paper, a lot of people treat it as though they’ve been asked to write a PhD thesis. Never fear! There's no need to hit the esc key just yet.

I’ve seen way too many overcooked strategies, and just as many strategy docs that get saved to a file graveyard never to be seen again.

?? Is your strategy gathering virtual dust on your server??

?? Is your strategy a static document you can't edit?

?? Is your strategy a highly designed deck with 30+ slides??

That all needs to change. Your marketing strategy should be a living, breathing, evolving plan.

No template? No worries.

Sometimes you’ll work for an agency or a brand that does strategy a certain way and you need to make sure you colour inside the lines. That’s totally fine.?

A lot of businesses have paid a lot of money and spent a lot of time creating a strategy system that works for them / their clients.?

When I worked at Havas and we were trying to win new business, there was always a sturdy foundation ready to build your pitch deck upon, and incredibly knowledgeable, experienced strategists to help you fill in the blanks.?

This guide is for the marketers who don’t have a tried-and-true template to get started. This is, after all, the start-up CMO newsletter, and when you’re building the marketing from ground zero, you have the opportunity to write the playbook yourself.?Let's get to work.

Don’t skip the prep work

To paraphrase Ben Franklin: fail to prepare and you can prepare to fail.?

I love a good old-fashioned whiteboard session to start any strategy. Here are some steps to help you get prepared for a strategy sesh, whether you’re flying solo or tackling it as a team:

• Pick a time of day when you do your best work*
• Block the time in your calendar (usually 1.5–2 hours)
• Decide who to involve (see below)
• Come prepared with past results, insights or trends?
• (Re)familiarise yourself with your competitors / the market
• Jot down any questions, assumptions or macro factors that may impact your strategy (e.g. resources like budget or team, tentative product launches, economic factors like elections or possible interest rate rises…)

*For more tips on how to optimise your time, check out my article on Calendar Cheat Codes + Meeting Hacks.

A great way to kick off a strategy session is a retrospective where everyone comes prepared with their ideas on what you should stop, start, or continue doing. Otherwise, a good old-fashioned SWOT analysis never fails to get the brain cogs turning!

Who to involve

If you’re a marketing team of one, you should consider inviting sales, customer care, creative, or even web dev to the strategy table, especially if you need the buy-in to make the plan happen.

And if you’re lucky enough to have a marketing team, you can create the strategy together.

In either case, it’s important to know WHEN to bring others in. You might want to get some thoughts down first, or create a skeleton strategy to fill in as a group to avoid that 'blank page' brain blocker.

Most people contribute best when they know what to expect from the session, and have time to come up with ideas beforehand.

If you’re inviting others to contribute to the strategy, make sure you’ve given them context and any prep work ahead of time, like:

• What is the ultimate goal the strategy / marketing is trying to achieve?
• What specific areas, channels or streams will be in focus? (e.g. partnerships, photoshoots, product development…)
• Are there any past insights or results you can share, OR other team members can bring to the discussion? (e.g. membership or sales numbers, seasonal fluctuations, search trends, top performing content…)
• What do you need people to come prepared with? (e.g. specific ideas for campaigns, past results as mentioned above, concerns or blockers…)

Start with what

Simon Sinek wasn’t wrong when he said ‘start with why’ when it comes to people, but when it comes to strategy I like to start with the ‘what’: what are we trying to achieve? What’s the big, north star goal for marketing??

It’s probably something like ‘hit $1M in revenue by end of year’ or ‘increase subscribers by 200% YOY’. Notice these goals have a quantifiable metric and timeframe, and can be broken down into actionable steps to get there. ‘Attract more members’ or ‘increase sales’ aren’t going to cut it as goals.

There are some things we learn that really stick, including SMART goals, SWOTs, and the 4 Ps of marketing. I have honestly used these frameworks both as a uni student and a CMO. There’s a reason they still teach them: they work!?

You can and should use these to build your strategy. They don't necessarily need to be included IN the strategy itself, but they're great frameworks for zooming out on your competitive landscape and zooming in on the problem you're trying to solve.

Once you have clear idea of what you need to achieve and you’re ready to break it down into smaller steps, here’s how it might look:

A two-word strategy

If your role is purely focused on one of these two words, you might want to skip this section.

Okay, are you ready? Here’s my two-word marketing strategy; two words you can build your entire marketing plan around:

Acquisition and Retention

To do this properly, you’re going to need to come prepared with lots of data, including some of our favourite marketing acronyms:

• Breakdown of new v returning buyers / users (% total users and + % revenue generated)
• CPA (cost per acquisition) new v returning
• Avg spend or Avg time on site new v returning
• Top acquisition channels new v returning
• Repeat purchase frequency
• Customer LTV (lifetime value)
• Marketing spend new v returning (and ROI / ROAS)

Too many brands focus almost all of their marketing efforts on acquisition. I’ve definitely been in this boat; it’s hard not to be when you're short on time and budgets and need to hit your numbers.?

But do yourself and your brand a favour today: dedicate a section of your strategy and a slice of your budget purely for retention. It may be a longer game, but if you can improve your repeat rate from say 5–7%, your bottom line (and your boss) are going to thank you for it.

You’ve already spent the money to acquire all those people; work on a plan to keep them interested and coming back for more!?

Know your audience

No, not that audience. The other audience: the one who will be reading or signing off on your strategy.?

Who will see your strategy? Will it be the wider business? Your boss? The board? Think about who is receiving it and what’s going to make sense (or not make sense) to them.?

Marketing jargon and acronyms can make your reader disconnect straight away. Too much data? Not enough data? Too many pretty pictures? Don't be afraid to ask your manager what they do and don't need to see in your plan.

Everyone takes in information differently, so try to make your strategy accessible to all: big headings and summaries for the skimmers, data and graphs for the visual learners, and appendices or drop-down sections with more detail for the deep divers.

It’s alive!

Like I mentioned at the start, your strategy shouldn’t be a static document gathering dust on the server you forget about you stumble upon it and go ‘oh yeah, I meant to do those things’.?

Put it in a format that you can refer back to regularly and tick off or report on as you go. You might even pop in a calendar reminder for each fortnight / month for a strategy status check: how are your activities and results lining up with your plan, and does anything need adjusting to move forward??

Our wider world and the world of marketing change so quickly, and your strategy needs to be flexible enough to adapt to changing resources, business goals, economic conditions, and new trends or channels (looking at you, TikTok).?

I’m a huge fan of Notion and have been known to build anything and everything in there. The beauty is you can also export pages as PDFs for easy sharing. Otherwise, tools like Trello or even a Google Sheet can keep your strategy alive and well.?

TL;DR your marketing strategy should be an evolving and editable plan. Start with a clear, specific goal of what you need to achieve and break it down into the channels, streams or teams. And make sure your strategy is designed with your reader in mind, whether it’s the wider business or board.