Your Optimal Marketing Strategy Isn't
Your Optimal Marketing Strategy Isn't
Thinking of marketing teams as machines that need to be tuned is a metaphorical trap.
It’s Tuesday. Are we feeling very demure? Mindful?
Yes I just did.
So we strategy consultants and agencies often get a bad rap.
Sometimes we deserve it. But sometimes we don’t.
The cliché (and some stereotypes exist for a reason) is that strategy consultants and agencies recommend strategies the business can’t implement. The proposed changes might be too complex, disruptive, expensive, or lengthy, making them impractical.
You’ve heard the jokes. One says marketing strategies are measured by the weight of the report (a variation says by how loud of a thump they make on a desk when dropped from a certain height). Another is that marketing leaders in companies have bookshelves lined with strategies that never got implemented.
Before I go on - speaking of marketing strategy…
<cue “and now a word from our sponsor”>
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<scoots off stage>
Okay… Let’s get focused and talk about optimal marketing strategies!…. In this week’s edition.
Optimal Marketing Strategies Often Aren’t
Snoop Dogg Returns to Solo Stove
Building Content For Moments
Let’s roll….
ZOOM LENS: OPTIMAL OFTEN ISN’T
So why do those cliches about Marketing Strategies being assessed by weight exist? Why do those plans so often end up not being deployed at all?
Well, the marketing teams often complain that the consultant (who might be internal by the way) didn’t understand the realities of their situation (or even the assignment). On the other hand, the Consultants and agencies claim the client “doesn’t get it” or “wasn’t ready for an optimal marketing strategy.”
And there’s the words: optimal marketing strategy.
You see, in these situations, both sides are correct, and both are wrong.
The author of the optimal marketing strategy probably didn’t understand the realities of the marketing team’s situation or history. And the marketing team probably wasn’t ready or able to execute the optimal strategy as constructed.
But here’s the thing: No strategy consultant or agency would ever develop a suboptimal marketing strategy to account for the client’s current capabilities. I mean can you imagine?
No client has ever Zoomed up a consultant or agency and said, “You know, forget optimal. We’re just not that talented. We need the just-good-enough plan.”
The mistake is in assuming that the optimal strategy is always better than “good enough.”
Sometimes it’s not.
Does culture really eat strategy for breakfast?
I recently worked with a marketing team of 30 people at a technology company. Most team members have been at the company for years and have developed a specific way of working together.
Two marketing leaders left recently, and two new leaders came in.
The new leaders wanted new processes, workflows, and measurement approaches to manage all the moving parts of their digital marketing. And they took a top-down approach to implement these changes.
Narrator: “It didn’t turn out well.”
When I reviewed their plan, I found it beautifully designed. It was right. The strategy was sound. It was the quintessential optimal marketing strategy.
But the team couldn’t seem to execute on it.
Why? Well, it was so much change and such a different way of working that it simply overwhelmed the team.
Some people didn’t buy into the plan. Some bought in but didn’t feel empowered to make some of the required decisions. And some were so busy keeping things going that they couldn’t see themselves devoting time to learning an entirely new way of working.
It was a perfect example of the famous quote attributed to business guru Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Now, Drucker didn’t say those exact words (though he said something relatively close). Regardless, that saying is often misconstrued to paint culture as an impediment to optimal strategy.
Drucker actually wrote (in a 1991 Wall Street Journal column called Don’t Change Corporate Culture — Use It!) that “culture — no matter how defined — is singularly persistent.” So, if you need to change something, “don’t change culture. Change habits.”
He believed that implementing strategy depended on making sure that the people involved would change their habits to accommodate it. And, as he wrote, “Changing behavior works only if it can be based on the existing ‘culture.’”
Story map your better plan
Developing the optimal marketing strategy plan is important. Different people will have ideas about what “optimal” looks like. But shooting for the right plan — independent of limitations, current capabilities, or culture — is the best place to start.
But what comes next is the most important.
When you review the plan, map out what would work best. You might need to take it more slowly or remove elements to make it achievable.
In my book Content Marketing Strategy, I explain the story-mapping approach I’ve used to do this with my clients for years. It involves reviewing any optimal strategy and then working to find out what makes it realistic — and ultimately better — by reducing its optimization.
Here’s how it works, in a nutshell.
Let yourself feel the uncertainty. It’s usually not the uncertainty of the “big hairy audacious goal’s” success that provokes anxiety — it’s the emotions that overwhelm people. Let yourself feel it. List all the things that scare you and could go wrong. Then, list those that could go right or spark joy. Then, acknowledge that the future is uncertain. You can’t control how you’ll feel, but you can control how you’ll react.
Map everything out. Start with describing what success would look like. Then, ask yourself: “What needs to be true for that success to be realized?” Write it all down. It might still be overwhelming, but you’ll be surprised how settling this step can be.
Prepare for different outcomes and contexts. Look at your list of what needs to be true and ask yourself what might get in the way. List everything. Then ask, “Which are the big things?” In other words, which things — if not settled — would wreck the foundation of the whole project?
Now that you’ve defined priorities (and not priorities), you can use them to make the plan more realistic, achievable, or believable for the teams affected.
When I ran this process for my technology company client, they compromised on some top-down new processes. Was it necessary to have a new fixed process for this thing that wasn’t really broken? It seemed optimal on paper, but the disruption might outweigh the benefit.
In de-optimizing the strategy, the team made it better. And it works well today.Have a great week. Oh, and if you want the longer, “optimal” version of this post. Well, it’s here.
WIDE ANGLE LENS: MARKETING SNAPS
Let’s get it all in frame. Shall we?
🏆 Snoop Lights Up Marketing With Blunt Strategy - Fresh off his Olympic hosting duties, Snoop Dogg has reunited with Solo Brands for a new campaign called Blunt Marketing. (See what they did there?). Is this campaign different than the #FAIL that influenced the CEO’s departure in 2024? Yes, it is.
Solo says it’s learned its lesson and is focused on the right thing — sales.
But has Solo really turned over a new leaf? I made a video about it if you want to - you know - take a puff….
🤮 DNC Building A New Experience By Focusing On Moments - One of the marketing headlines to come out of last week’s Democratic National Convention is that they built the entire agenda around viral moments that could be played and replayed across social media, rather than building for the live and even recorded television format. While this confounded the TV analysts - it made for a better live event - and certainly reached A LOT more viewers than ever before.
There are lessons to be learned here about how we must take our content to the edges and design them specifically for the experiences where our audiences now congregate. I wrote a little about this last week.
“Geeeeenius” bellows someone at the end of the table. “Meeting adjourned.”
LENS CAP: Let’s Finish With A Flourish
People aren’t machines
Thinking of Marketing teams as machines that need to be tuned is a metaphorical trap. Organizations are collections of people who perform best when nurtured.
Today’s marketing teams don’t thrive because they’ve been optimized with mechanical adjustments. They thrive when their success is cultivated through relationships and shared purpose.
Sometimes, you can (and should) opt out of optimization.
Stay Demure. Mindful. And Remember….
It’s your story. Tell it well
See you next week!