Strategy vs. Tactics

So you want to grow your business…

Cue: marketing strategy

But you’ve tried that… so what’s missing?

There’s a difference between strategies and tactics so it’s important for you to have both in your arsenal as having one over the other is going to leave your business in the exact same place it’s in right now.

Understanding the difference between the two can help you close marketing gaps in your business as well as achieve far more, let’s start by defining the difference between the two.

Strategies & Tactics Defined:

Strategies are the overall ways in which you achieve a goal, they are the what and the why.

Growing your audience, building your database, going networking, these are all strategies - and in order for you to see success with these, you need to also have tactics.

Tactics are the specific steps you need to take, they are the how.

To grow your audience, your tactics might include being featured on industry podcasts each week or guest speaking at networking events on a regular basis.?

Tactics are more detailed, task-oriented actions, they bring the strategy to life by putting it into motion.

You can tick tactics off your to-do list, strategies instead are the result of a compound of tasks.

So, it’s important that we have both clearly laid out if we want to grow our businesses.

Below are examples of clearly laid out strategies and supporting tactics that you might like to borrow for your business.

Example #1:

Strategy: Have more coffee dates

Tactic:

• Each week, ask two people from networking events to book a coffee

Example #2:

Strategy: Grow email database

Tactic:?

• Create an ebook or PDF that your ideal clients would exchange for their email
• Reach out to referral partners to co-host an event, webinar or supply a regular blog for their database
• Write a monthly email from the business owner with a call to action

Example #3:

Strategy: Client retention and client re-engagement

Tactic:?

• Audit clients to see what we can do better to keep them longer / have them spend more
• Start corporate gifting to thank and celebrate clients
• Engage with past clients 2-4 times per year (an email, gesture, zoom catchup, meeting)

Applying this into your business:

If you want to grow your business then here’s a formula to follow:

1. Identify your goal
2. Decide on a strategy
3. Create 3-5 tactics to execute

One final note, quite often people will create a long-list of “strategies” to help grow their business when instead, if they had more (and better) tactics, they’d see far greater results.

See where you can dive into more and better tactics so you have a really robust marketing strategy working for your business rather than spreading yourself too thin.

→ If you’re a service based business and would like help to grow, let’s have a chat to see how I can help you grow your sales, enhance your team and better manage your business - book your call here today.

? I'm Shannon Stone, award-winning business & marketing consultant and I specialise in helping service based businesses strengthen their sales, enhance their team and better manage their business.

?? Connect with me on LinkedIn for more content to help you grow your service based business.