I recently had the privilege of guest lecturing at Bentley University’s eMarketing class, hosted by CC Chapman. The most important point of the evening was that strategy is where we must always start as marketers.

• If we don’t know why we’re doing something, we don’t have a winning strategy.
• If we don’t have SMART goals, we don’t have a winning strategy.
• If we don’t respect the limits time imposes on us, or our resources and competitors’ strategies, we don’t have a winning strategy.

In Leading Innovation and Marketing Blue Belt, I share this formula for strategy:

Strategy is goals times methods, limited by time and the environment.

• If we’ve got the right goals but the wrong methods, our strategy will fail.
• The reverse is also true.
• No goals or no methods? Multiply anything times a zero and we get zero.

If you’re starting marketing and you’re not talking goals and methods, or constraints on those goals and methods, you’re not talking strategy — and strategy is where you must start.

You might also enjoy:

• B2B Email Marketers: Stop Blocking Personal Emails
• Transformer les personnes, les processus et la technologie - Christopher S. Penn - Conférencier principal sur la science des données marketing
• What Content Marketing Analytics Really Measures
• What Is The Difference Between Analysis and Insight?
• Retiring Old Email Marketing Strategies

Get your copy of AI For Marketers

Join my Analytics for Marketers Slack Group!