Tactical Marketing vs Strategic Marketing
Marketing, as well as business in general, does not tolerate chaos. Therefore, it is very important to work with advertising activities comprehensively, understanding and realizing the whole picture. Marketing activities can be divided into strategic activities and tactical ones.
Strategy as the basis of everything
Strategic activities are used for the long haul. Their results (Key Performance Indicators) are not easy to calculate with an adequate probability. Strategic marketing activities include formation and promotion of a brand or product as well as working on impressions. The results of such activities increase gradually. Their goals are the following: creating a stable association of the product with a certain visual image, color, sounds, smell, etc., as well as taking a leading position in a certain niche for the selected target audience.
The above mentioned is not about the financial share of the market, although these indicators go hand in hand, but about the associative aspect. In other words, when a consumer hears the word “laundry”, a word “Tide” pops into his/her mind, and when he sees a red truck, he thinks of Coca-Cola.
The attribute of strategic advertising activities lies in this: if they are stopped, sales will not fall instantly, but will remain in their positions for some time.
Strategic marketing efforts should be in line with brand positioning in general and should not be far from USP and global marketing strategy. You can adjust the characters and words, but the essence must remain the same.
Strategic advertising campaigns are characterized by the following messages: “our product will make you happy”, “our product is made for teenagers”, “we know what you want”, “our product performs best in the competition” and so on.
Tactics. The breadwinner.
Tactical advertising campaigns are campaigns that are subordinated to strategic ones and do not contradict the global messages of the brand. However, they may contain local or periodic features. For example, it could be an advertisement for Black Friday or other discounts, an ad for seasonal shoes or for a new car of your brand.
The results of tactical advertising can be measured fairly accurately and objective conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of a message. Tactical advertising brings the bulk of income and is quite flexible. In the situation of an urgent need for funds or if there’s a need to sell the goods that`ve been in storage for a long time, you can always quickly prepare a tactical advertising campaign and achieve the desired goals.
Tactical marketing can and should respond rapidly to changes in the external environment. For example, If you always bet on beach umbrellas in the summer, then you need to refocus the emphasis on rubber boots and insect spray in rainy summer. Tactical advertising must be flexible and keep up with the times.
As soon as tactical advertising stops, sales fall very sharply. This feature has its pluses, e.g. you can collect orders from customers for a few months ahead and stop spending money on tactical advertising. But there is also a minus. For some reason, many businessmen do not increase budgets for tactical marketing in times of crisis, and do the contrary — they primarily cut funds.
With a hammer or with a screwdriver?
When choosing advertising tools, it is very important to separate these two types of marketing. If you tactfully advertise a seasonal discount without considering the impact of this advertising on strategic messages, you will eventually realize that the consumer has begun to associate your brand with constant discounts and leaves the store dissatisfied without seeing them on a permanent basis.
You can divide these types of advertising by tools. For example, the strategic positioning of the brand should be conducted via TV and outdoor advertising, and tactical messages should be shown in the digital segment and broadcasted on the radio.
It is important to choose flexible tools for tactical advertising that allow you to respond quickly to external changes. It is a big mistake to make an expensive video about winter tires and pay for TV shows throughout the snowless warm winter. Don`t you agree? And on YouTube, in contrast, you can stop advertising, as soon as the snow melts, and thus save money. Just like that, billboards with a call to buy tickets to the seaside look inappropriate now, during quarantine. And selections of Easter products cause some dissonance.
When strategy is evil
There are times, such as now, when strategic advertising can harm a brand. Your message may be completely innocent, but in a certain period of time it may cause a negative result.
Despite the fact that strategic advertising activities are not significantly flexible, such periods should be taken into account. You should try to make changes to the strategy so that you do not harm your business at your own expense.
If you used to advertise luxury homes on television, then in times of crisis, when a large part of the audience feels panic, frustration and sadness due to the financial situation, such advertising would cause negative emotions and possibly even aggression, despite the fact that before crisis people who could not afford your product, simply did not pay attention to your advertising.
When society is experiencing a severe economic downturn, it is inappropriate to promote a “good life.” If your brand strategy provides just such a message and it is not adapted to the situation, it does not mean that it is time to change the strategy urgently. However, in such circumstances, it is better to temporarily stop strategic advertising and focus on tactical, more flexible messages.
Where to start?
A big mistake when starting a business is to save money on strategic marketing (especially since such advertising is often not cheap). Using only tactical messages makes a business simply “one of”. Without a strategy, the results will disappear as soon as the campaign runs out. А bad tactical message can also make the results fade, but this happens and it’s normal. However, if the brand works to consolidate the desired image in the mind of the consumer from the very beginning, then even in times of crisis, these results will help to stay afloat.
Change impossible to leave
It is very important to outline a global marketing strategy at the beginning and continue to follow the chosen path. Marketing strategy is certainly a flexible tool, and its success is difficult to predict at the origins. However, too frequent strategic changes can lead to the necessity to start business from scratch every time after such modifications.
You can change your marketing strategy and key marketing messages. But you must have enough reasons for this and, of course, be aware of the risks.
Summary
- When advertising a collection of summer shoes, you should not forget about advertising the manufacturer / store in general.
- The results of strategic advertising are difficult to measure, and the results of tactical campaigns should be accounted and analyzed clearly.
- Tactical advertising works “for now” and does not save the result when stopped. Strategic advertising forms a brand and maintains results for a certain period of time, even when stopped.
- For tactical and strategic messages, choose different advertising tools.
- Tactical messages should be flexible and should take into account the external situation, but should not contradict the strategic ones.
- With significant external changes, strategic advertising can be stopped if it is perceived negatively during this period.
- The strategy should not be changed unnecessarily. If the necessity does exist, then the risks should be clearly understood.
