Strategy vs. Tactics: Why The Confusion Is Killing Your B2B Marketing

When I ask B2B companies to describe their marketing strategy, the most common response I get is a list of tactics (or assets).?

• Social media
• Email marketing
• Paid ads
• Print collateral
• Trade shows
• Website
• etc.

Why is it difficult to distinguish between tactics and strategy??

Because marketing is complicated and interconnected, and people don’t even agree on what it means. So, let’s start with a definition that brings things into focus.

Excuse me while I quote myself.

What Is Marketing?

"Marketing is one-to-many communication with a specific target audience with the goal(s) of introducing the brand to new people at scale, defining & solidifying brand position in the market, providing value to nurture relationships, and helping people take the desired next step in their buying journey with more ease and less fear." - Shasta Daisy McCarty

With that as a working definition, it’s a little easier to start determining what your STRATEGY is, and how it differs from just having a set of marketing TACTICS.

Here are a couple of comparisons that can help:

Example 1:

An email campaign?is a tactic.?

Even email marketing as a whole is still a tactic.

In contrast, nurturing contacts and leads to accelerate movement through the pipeline is a strategy. And in that nurture strategy, there might be multi-channel touches outside of email. These might include outreach on LinkedIn or a retargeting campaign on Google or other platforms.

Example 2:

• SEO is a tactic
• Content marketing is a tactic
• Social media is a tactic
• Going to trade shows is a tactic
• Print advertising is a tactic

Brand visibility is a strategy with the goal of priming the audience for future sales efforts.

Why Should You Make a Distinction Between Strategy and Tactics?

When you focus just on marketing tactics, it’s easy to miss the peripheral or supporting activities that need to take place to serve the larger, strategic marketing objective. This objective should align with your business and brand goals for revenue, reputation, and resilience.

Without the bigger picture, you WILL miss massive opportunities to optimize and maximize your results.

Marketing Strategy Focuses on the Goals AND the Ecosystem

Another way to look at marketing strategy is as an ecosystem.?

The apex predator in this metaphor is the super exciting Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). It’s like the tiger in the jungle. It’s cool. It's thrilling. There aren’t that many of them out there, and everyone wants one (including Joe Exotic).

So, companies spend most (or nearly all) of their marketing dollars on whatever they think is THE way to get SQLs right now.

• Paid digital ad campaigns
• Trade shows and events
• Cold email lists

But having a healthy number of “tigers” in your ecosystem means they have to be fed by something. Those are your Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), the herbivores in this metaphor. They get nurtured through email, social, live events, free resources, and much more.

Those MQLs don’t come out of nowhere. They have to be cultivated from a larger audience (the plant life) through things like social media and other brand building efforts, often including paid advertising for early stage awareness (impressions matter!)

Here's a quick visual of our "lead generation ecosystem" that we have built at Blender to grow our own business. It's strategic and it's all connected!

In Conclusion

When you focus on TACTICS alone, you miss out on the fact that it takes a STRATEGY to form a healthy ecosystem that takes care of your future pipeline instead of just what you can land right now.

Want to get access to more best practices for B2B Marketing Strategy? Join me on March 16th for my next live online event. Register here for free .