♟️Your Ultimate Guide to Marketing Strategies
Ready for sustainable success? My recipe with 3 steps for successful (green) marketing strategies. The perfect introduction as a practical guide.
Hi 👋 I’m Florian Schleicher. This is the FutureStrategies newsletter. Thank you so much for reading along 💚
Marketing without a strategy is like cooking without a recipe.
It can go well.
Can go very wrong.
What makes the difference?
Experience.
Or luck.
This article is for all those who prefer to rely on experience.
Here I describe my ultimate guide:
1️⃣ Why successful marketing needs a strategy
2️⃣ What 3 steps a marketing strategy consists of
3️⃣ How we can ensure that marketing is sustainable
And at the end of this article, there is a gift on how I help you improve your strategy. But I only have 3 places this time.
One more note before we start:
This article consists of my learnings and experiences from over 15 years of marketing strategies, hundreds of marketing projects, and a lot of reading and conversations. So this is a lot of knowledge that I have acquired myself. It wasn't easy for me to say "Okay, I'll share this with everyone now." So I'm happy if you keep that in mind when you read this article and use the learnings for yourself. ❤️
1️⃣ Why does successful marketing need a strategy?
The core task of marketing is to identify unfulfilled needs and desires.
And to create value (products and services) with which long-term profit can be achieved in the target market.
If marketing does not fulfill this, then it is not marketing.
An Instagram account that has no impact on sales ≠ Marketing.
A press release that doesn't generate any downloads ≠ Marketing.
A newsletter that doesn't convert readers into customers ≠ Marketing.
78% of a group of 1,200 CEOs think that marketeers often lose sight of what their actual job is. I felt the same way at times in my role at McDonald's, Greenpeace and Too Good To Go.
And that is precisely why successful marketing needs a strategy. One that constantly reminds us of what we are actually doing and how and why we are doing it.
If marketing has the task of selling, then simply put, strategies have the task of getting us from A to B.
And in the most effective way.
Without a strategy, the goal, the vision, or the reason why we are taking action fades into the background. Actions are taken, but they are not stringent and do not contribute to the bigger picture. There may be a vision, but no goals derived from it. Goals are set, but only sometimes achieved.
The "strategy" I hear most often is "growth".
But growth is a direction. And not a way of dealing with a challenge. Many companies think goals are a strategy. But unless a "strategy" consists of "A" and "B" and then addresses how we bridge that gap, it's not a real strategy.
If you're thinking: "Oh wow, my company doesn't have that either!" - Don't worry, many companies do.
Richard Rumelt, strategist and author of "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy" writes:
“The first natural advantage of good strategy arises because other organizations often don’t have one. And because they don’t expect you to have one, either. Instead, they have multiple goals and initiatives that symbolize progress, but no coherent approach to accomplishing that progress other than ‘spend more and try harder.”
I've been working with large corporations and small start-ups for many years now and many of them don't have a real strategy. Or as an acquaintance who works in a large company once told me:
“We’re big enough that we don’t really need to come up with a strategy.”
Shocking, right?
2️⃣ What 3 steps does a marketing strategy consist of?
