Doing strategic marketing is like planting a garden. You need a mix of long and short term to look and work great.
Planting acorns and walnuts that will grow and prosper long term for many years to come is like long term strategic work. Don’t expect shade for the first few years.
By doing just tactics, we’re planting annual flowers. They add good color and look pretty for a short time, but will fade and die at the first sign of frost.
A strong marketing plan has a mix of large trees, with both saplings and seedlings as well as both annual and perrenial flowers. Annuals provide color while perrenials offers year after year performance.
Chris,
What a great analogy and so true. Clients tend to want the quick fix. A “show me its going to work.” Hard to argue. But those quick hits are usually built off a promotion or temporary price reduction. Building loyalty and brand awareness falls in the “acorn to tree” side of the fence.
As good stewards of their brand/marketing I think its our job to help them see the benefits of a balanced plan, built for results that accumulate over time.
Drew
I have a background in marketing research. However, I have been trying to expand my marketing knowledge by assisting small businesses achieve their marketing goals. I created a survey, and expect to use the results to drive their marketing campaign. However, I feel setting long term goals (i.e. increase refferal rates and positive word of mouth) and short term goals (i.e. eliminate end of year inventory) will be essential to meeting sales targets both now and later.
Feel free to link up to my marketing blog @ http://www.conceptsmartketing.blogspot.com
Ron
Hi Chris-
A belated comment on this very good post. I only wish that every client understood the concept. Particularly in the area of media relations-seeds that are sewn today may not come to fruition for months or even years-it is hard to explain why the story you are pitching relentlessly doesn’t appear the next day on the front page of the New York Times.