Nov 07
22

Objectives, Strategies and Tactics, let’s get it straight

3 Comments

There is so much confusion at times around the difference between an objective, a strategy and a tactic in the communications business. There was a recent Inside PR episode talking about communications plans that began this conversation and I am hoping to continue it here.

Note: I have written this from the point-of-view of a services company.

Objective – something that one’s efforts or actions are intended to attain or accomplish; purpose; goal; target.
Marketing Meaning: A measurable end point (i.e. 2,000 contest entries, 200% Web traffic increase, DM/Email Response rate, Mentions in X, Y or Z media outlets, etc.). If you can’t look back on a campaign and say yes or no to an objective – it wasn’t an objective in the first place.

Strategy – a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world.
Marketing Meaning: This is a campaign idea or a roll-up of a series of initiatives that all fit on the same plan (i.e. If objective is X number of sign-ups for an email newsletter, then a possible strategy would be hold a contest with an opt-in option for a newsletter).

Tactic – An expedient for achieving a goal; a maneuver.
Marketing Meaning: The actions that are actually taken to achieve objectives or part of an objective. In above example of contest sign-ups, individual tactics might be: promote contest in paid media, send out press release, etc. A tactic cannot really be broken down further, it is a specific task that works toward one or more objectives.

Definitions courtesy of Dictionary.com

Now that all sounds easy enough, but there are two other things that complicate matters and cause untold problems in writing plans and briefs.

1. What is a strategy to one stakeholder, might be a tactic or even an objective to another.

2. A distinction must be made between business objectives and strategies versus communication objectives and strategies.

Here is an example:

A sports retail store chain wants to increase sales by 10% (business objective) and decides to dedicate a budget to a specific marketing campaign and task their agency (business strategy). They brief their agency on a sales flyer, front page mention on the Web site and a Direct Mail blast (marketing tactics).

The Direct Mail account people say that they want to produce a 5% response rate (communications objective) with a total mail out of 1,000 people. They then decide that the best way to achieve this is by purchasing a list of sports enthusiasts with local postal codes creating an incentive (communications strategy) and developing a gate-fold mailer with a buy one get one free coupon (tactics).

The people designing the flyer and the Web site would similarly break down the marketing tactic, into communication objectives, strategies and tactics.

No wonder I have been thinking “this is not an objective”on so many of the briefs I have received over the years…

[tags] creative brief, strategy, tactics, objective, marketing, plan, insidepr[/tag]

This entry was posted on November 22, 2007 at 4:24 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Advertising Public Relations agencies by dwalker 3 Comments

3 Responses to "Objectives, Strategies and Tactics, let’s get it straight"

  • Leigh says:
    November 24, 2007 at 6:24 am

    IMO there is more of an issue between what is a marketing objective, strategy and tactics vs. communication and then load on top of that what you would end up putting into an agency creative brief etc. etc…

    I saw a client deck recently that had something in order of 34 objectives – with no differentiation what was a business goal vs. communication objective vs. advertising strategy etc.

    The truth is, focus and clarity in this area is at times rocket science and anyone (no matter what their level) who hasn’t paused at least a few times thinking, shit is that a strategy or a objective, is foolin’ themselves.

    Know what I mean?

  • David Reich says:
    November 27, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    I sometimes see confusion and blurring of the line between strategy and tactic. Your definitions above should help clarify. Thanks.

  • Heather Yaxley says:
    November 28, 2007 at 6:40 am

    We also need to be clear on objectives that are related to delivering a task and those that are about achieving an outcome.

    In the sports retail example the business objective of increase in sales by 10% needs to be clarified – is this 10% in volume, profit, income? By when? Is this reasonable in the current market conditions?

    The company decides to use a marketing strategy to achieve this business objective (as opposed to sales or savings on production, for example).

    This involves a number of approaches – so should there not be an overall marketing objective and strategy to guide the choice of marketing approaches? Have they identified whether this increase can be achieved through existing customers buying more or attracting new customers, etc? Without this intelligence, producing any objectives or strategies may be doomed to fail at the outset.

    Accepting they decide on a direct marketing strategy – the 5% response rate needs to be based on research into what is feasible and what the budget will support. It might be better expressed as 50 responses – but will these deliver the incremental business required above? How many of these responses are normally converted to additional sales?

    We always need a sanity check on objectives and strategies/tactics to ensure there is a reasonable expectation that the action involved will achieve the objective.

    I believe that the example decision of purchasing a list is not a strategy but part of the flow of tactics.

    So here, the marketing strategy is to target sports enthusiasts with the local area. Then a campaign can be developed that may involve public relations, product, price, direct marketing, etc.

    In terms of DM, the tactic would first be to purchase the list (as opposed to inserts in the local sports clubs newsletter or a house drop for example). Within this, there will be a list of tactics, which need to have their own implementation objectives, such as creating an incentive, producing a mailer, etc etc. All to be realised within a budget and timeframe – and again sanity checked regarding their feasibility for achieving the hierarchy of objectives.

    I believe that considering objectives and strategy needs to be based on intelligence gathering or it is too easy to produce unrealistic aims that are then directed to agencies who may not be best served to deliver. If your problem can’t be resolved by DM for example, then you don’t need DM objectives or strategies.

Leave a Comment