Wikipedia defines strategy as: a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. We have seen an absolute failure to plan and to design a plan that achieves success, specifically in the channel marketing space.
Recently we have been allocated onto a project where the director of marketing is carpet bombing a specific market with 8 unique campaigns and wants us to come and be the 9th campaign effort in their area and to also hit a segment that isn’t even a viable segment for this partner to specifically target. The amazing part of this is that nobody is planning, nobody is looking at what actions will lead to success, and instead strategy has been left out of the equation all together. Bottom line sometimes marketers just want to mark things off their list, “throw money at it” and hope it works. Also we think people do not learn the art of strategy or have never been taught it. Instead it’s go, go, go…..look busy, act busy, be busy and maybe, just maybe you’ll get some results.
Our suggestion is to always look at the overarching goals, develop a logical strategic plan that makes the most sense and then execute those activities that will get you to your goals. Not a difficult formula but one that is often left behind or not utilized. Define the goals based upon specified demand generation experience and or data points and realistic expectations. What is the plan with regards to this demand generation tactic and what needs to happen before you take action? Who needs to be involved, what needs to be done, when do we start, how do we do it and where do we end?
Why has or does strategy leave the building for B2B demand generation marketers in some instances?
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