Most small business owners, and plenty of large business marketing employees, get marketing strategy confused with marketing tactics.

As a marketing strategy consultant, I often get clients who come to me and ask me to write an ad without understanding that developing the marketing strategy needs to come before the tactical implementation of an ad or campaign.

Here’s marketing strategy simplified

Strategy should always come before tactics.

Marketing Strategy is:

• “What To Say”
• “How To Say It”
• “Who To Say It To”

In other words, the “what to say” part is your message. The “how to say it” part is how and with what words will you say it (also called copywriting), and the “who to say it to” part is your target market.

If you don’t know who you are trying to reach and what message you want to communicate, your marketing will suck. This is why you see so many marketing messages with a headline of the company name, a photo of the owner or their product.

Marketing Tactics are:

• “When To Say It”
• “Where To Say It”
• “How Often To Say It”

This is where most business owners start. The “when” means the timing of your message, the “where” means through which media, and the “how often” part refers to the frequency of your marketing.

If you don’t take the time to define who you are trying to reach and then put together a message that will capture your prospect’s attention and get them to take some sort of action, you are wasting your money.

The Internet is not a strategy.

It’s just another media, or way to get your message out. There are plenty of different types of media both online and offline, and as Dan Kennedy teaches, you need a match between your message, your market and your media. Just as it makes no sense to use social media to target older people who never use it, it is appropriate to use mobile phone marketing, Facebook and text messaging to reach the younger generation.

In fact, my kids don’t respond to phone calls or voice mails, they text. I’ve even seen teenagers sitting across from each other sending texts instead of talking!

As marketers, our goal should be to reach the people we want to reach with a message that is relevant and interesting to them as inexpensively as possible. Spending some time to set up and define your marketing strategy before spending money is a great idea!

To get training on how to do this, go here to get access to the best and most comprehensive training available and here to see the details on the Internet marketing training available.

Tags: Internet marketing training, marketing, marketing strategy, marketing tactics