Following a valuable conversation with freelance Drive colleagues before Christmas – where I laid my thoughts about my business pretty bare – an interesting concept came up.
Focus on the target at hand | Mihai Lazar, Unsplash
We were talking about breadth vs depth, and the benefits of being a generalist as opposed to a specialist in a sector (more on that in another blog).
The concept was around the efficacy of having a tactical tool in your marketing armoury. A targeted problem solver. A sniper. A sharpshooter.
Someone external to the everyday, picking off particular marketing or comms problems, without the requirement of getting stuck into an organisation’s history, its biases and dragged into the day-to-day.
“If there was a problem / Yo, I’ll solve it /
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it”
Of course you’re strategic
We’re all bloody ‘strategic’, aren’t we?! But the in-depth tone of voice review, competitor analysis and ‘getting under the skin’ of the brand is not always required to achieve certain objectives.
As an example, I recently worked with an education group that wanted to target a certain geographical audience (I dislike demographic, but it was), in order to make the most of an opportunity that had come their way.
Did I have thoughts about brand positioning? Yep.
Did I want to ensure tone of voice was consistent across all platforms, internal and external? For sure.
And did I feel like there were bigger communication challenges that should be looked at first? Oh, yes.
Focus
However, having a reduced brief, and not becoming enveloped by the day-to-day deliverables and challenges thrown up by JFDIs can enable clarity and focus on completing the task at hand.
Image credit: Paul Skorupskas, Unsplash
The quick turnaround requirement for my education client at the time was tactical, not wholly strategic. Or, as we came around to in our discussion before Christmas: strategically-informed or strategically-influenced tactics.
They had neither the budget or time to allocate to a wide-ranging strategic review, and – close your ears, comms colleagues – it wasn’t a priority.
They didn’t care. I didn’t have capacity. Yet, it’s a good result for both parties.
That’s the thing about projects – you never know where they will lead. I’m now talking with them about some wider marketing activity in different regions.
Now, let me climb back up on the fence.
There’s a balance, for sure. Strategy is important. You should have an overarching strategy in place, obviously. It helps decisions to be made, marketing and communication to flow and be effective, inform, educate and direct approaches, activities and behaviours, among 1,001 other elements.
There is a time and a place for all: strategy and time to think; tactical activity; and the sometimes-needed all-in, firefighting retainer (also known as get sh*t done).
So, three takeaways about the value of small, targeted projects – whether you are working in-house or as a freelance consultant?
Start small, prove your/its value, and be part of the conversation for the next stage.
(And that really reminds me, I need to do a Three Things video soon…)
So, what do you think about strategy and tactics? Is there a place for each? And are we all as strategic as we say we are…?
Let me know your thoughts below/drop me a note to adam@authenticcomms.co.uk.
Cover image credit: Max Larochelle (Unsplash)
PS: Hidden treat for reading this far. I actually wanted to put this absolute Jungle/DnB belter as the quote at the top, but wasn’t sure that it would get as many nods as Vanilla Ice… Enjoy!