Before we dive into marketing strategy it’s important to consider the difference between business strategy and marketing strategy, since they often get confused.
Here’s the simplest way I know of to compare the two:
Choices you make | Customers you focus on |
---|---|
Business Strategy | |
• The choices you make to be different from other businesses | Marketing Strategy |
• Research + Insights (+ pattern matching) | |
Business Execution | |
• The choices you make to be better than other businesses | Marketing Execution |
• Tactics and implementation (campaigns) |
https://youtu.be/kBJKwTZV72w?si=iWSrp8Xti5ACuErZ
Put another way, business strategy is essentially about what you say ‘no’ to.
As an example, consider an accounting practice (I use accountants as an example often, because they are probably the most common professional services business that we all interact with).
An accountant typically provides tax advice, compliance, and possibly some financial planning advice (if they have they the right qualifications). They may also offer bookkeeping services.
At this broad level, all accountants are the same.
However, if they started to think about business strategy, they’d likely start narrowing their focus (ie saying no to things):