Goals, Gaps, Strategy & Tactics
START FROM WHERE YOU ARE NOW…
- Your business may be new or operating in Startup mode.
- Your brand, messaging, and visual ‘look and feel’ is in it’s earliest stages, has some elements missing, or doesn’t existYou don’t have employees in a full time marketing role, or an agency, yet.
- You don’t currently have a marketing workflow OR a marketing tech stack – a set of tools/applications that represent your marketing technology stack.
- You haven’t budgeted for marketing other than plugging in estimated numbers for marketing inyour business plan.
- Your brand, messaging, and visual ‘look and feel’ is in it’s earliest stages, has some elements missing, or doesn’t exist.
Address the Gaps Listed Above.
Companies operating in startup mode and even existing businesses will have gaps in their marketing capabilities.
Look To Your Network.
Who has the skills that could fill the following roles:
a. Graphic Designer, Art Director, or Illustrator
b. Photographer and/or Videographer
c. Social Media Manager
d. Writer
e. Web Developer
Make A Plan.
Like all plans, start with your unique goals and objectives. Then develop a strategy to reach those goals and objectives, followed by defining what tactics you focus on within your strategy.
1. Goals and objectives are the desired outcomes.
Example: Identify and onboard 20 larger investors with a combined minimum investment dollar amount of $100,000.
In a typical marketing plan, these goals line up with your revenue and profit goals for the business – and further align with the strategic business goals related to maintaining or growing the business.
2. Strategy is the high-level description of your plan.
In the case of investor acquisition, it’s what you plan to do to achieve a change in behavior. In this case, convince investors to put money into your idea with the expectation of a return; and other possible benefits.
3. Tactics are the mix of tools and approaches that when executed, will ideally result in getting to your goals.
It is the marketing mix, which is classically defined as the 4 P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Modern marketing tactics break this down further. e.g. Hiebing, Cooper, and Wehrenberg, authors of “The Successful Marketing Plan” use the items at right times.
EXAMPLE A:
1. Goal: Get our first 30% ($40K) in place one week prior to launch.
2. Strategy: Recruit 20 backers at $2000 each by [date]
3. Tactics:
• Let family and friends know that our company will need their help with something big.
• Send invitations to a brand event scheduled for 1 week after the portal is live, but two weeks before our formal launch announcement.
• Plan a conference call with my top 6 college buddies, promising important company news.
EXAMPLE B
1. Goal: Get our first 30% ($40K) in place one week prior to launch.
2. Strategy: Recruit 7 colleagues to pledge $4K each by [date]
3. Tactics:
• Begin ‘check-in’ conversations with 750 LinkedIn contacts 45 days prior to launch
• Reach out to 75 LinkedIn contacts each day after launch.
• Drive conversations toward 4 group calls 2,3, and 4 days after portal is live.
• Invite ‘VIP’s’ to virtual event 1 week after portal is live but two weeks before actual launch.
• Get help with messaging top 50 LinkedIn influencers and asking them to follow company FB page.
EXAMPLE C
1. Goal: Have first 30 days of social media posts drafted by launch day.
2. Strategy: Find a marketing writer/content strategist for copy
3. Tactics:
• Ask LinkedIn network and partner contacts for recommendations.
• Outline requested needs for a proposal
• Create a content spreadsheet and list topics for brand story posts + ‘expected’ posts such as milestone updates
• Find examples from other campaigns for ‘expected’ posts and use those to draft content and drop into spreadsheet
• Setup social scheduler app and train Doug to compose posts and schedule them
• Research hashtags and add to spreadsheet
• Assign brand story posts to writer
• Setup blog on website + share credentials with Doug
• Setup Bit.ly account and share credentials with Doug
EXAMPLE D:
1. Goal: Have first 30 days of social media posts drafted by launch day.
2. Strategy: Get images located for posts and gather in a gallery
3. Tactics:
• Share content spreadsheet with Sarah and assign project of searching/matching images to brand topics
• Setup hidden gallery in website for images
• Get stock photo account setup for Sarah
• Ask designer to resize images and label to social channel specs and upload to blog gallery
