Strategy & tactics - the difference explained
I was in a meeting the other day and a CMO kept confusing “strategic” with “tactical.” It reminded me of all the times I’ve encountered this in my career.Strategy is rooted in a plan of action that’s focused on accomplishing a specific goal that’s high level. Tactics are the way the strategy is carried out.
Borrowing from the journalistic “five Ws and one H,” strategy is the “who, what and why” and tactics are the “where, when and how.”
Strategy involves proactively determining the ultimate endgame. Tactics are the things you do to achieve the strategic goal.
A few examples within a communications context:
Strategic Tactical
Borrowing from the journalistic “five Ws and one H,” strategy is the “who, what and why” and tactics are the “where, when and how.”
Strategy involves proactively determining the ultimate endgame. Tactics are the things you do to achieve the strategic goal.
A few examples within a communications context:
Strategic Tactical
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Deposition a key competitor around the value ingredient
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Create a head-to-head comparison online
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Transform a company's persona from stodgy to approachable
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Create short, fun YouTube videos
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Shift a negative public perception to positive
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Conduct thoughtful, transparent two-way communication with online communities
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Create a new category position
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Secure an influential industry analyst to embrace and evangelize the new category
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Transform a company from an “also ran” to a first-tier position
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Engage delighted consumers to advocate on your behalf via Twitter
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Craft thought leadership platform that leapfrogs current vision and depositions
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Architect an inside-out and outside-in blogging effort
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Create more widespread awareness for an issue
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Get Michael Arrington of TechCrunch to blog about it.
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Build a larger community of followers
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Write and publish compelling content that creates many-to-many online conversations
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Doing something strategicallyinvolves the following:
- Identify a specific outcome you want to achieve
- Conduct research (market, competitive, attitudinal) to
establish a realistic “baseline” starting point that takes into consideration internal and external realities - Put together a proactive plan that leverages the research findings, anticipates issues, looks at the big picture and incorporates specific strategic objectives and end results
- Engage in consensus building with appropriate groups and individuals; get key people on board to support the strategy
Doing something tacticallymeans you:
- Understand the strategic goals
- Create plans focused on specific activities mapped into specific timeframes with specific outcomes
- Make sure the tactical activities are carried out well
- Measure their impact and help tie tactics back to the strategic plan
Strategy includes creating a different reality via creative, smart planning. Tactics are focused actions. The two are deeply intertwined. You need both to achieve branding success.
Comments
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Great write up, Andy. I'll be using this with my more "difficult" clients to help them better understand the process. Keep up the great posts.
# Posted By Ned
| 8/17/09 1:26 PM
Reminds me of a colleague who explained it this way - My goal is to lose weight, my objective is to lose ten pounds, my strategy is to not eat as much, and my tactic is to skip lunch. Or something like that.
# Posted By Jerry Johnson
| 9/17/09 11:05 AM
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