It sometimes easy to get confused identifying the objectives, strategies and tactics of your business, and this confusion often lies with differentiating between the three. However, understanding this subject is an effective way of using your time and resources efficiently and increasing productivity.
Strategies Lead to Objectives
Objectives should always be the end result of your marketing efforts while strategies help define what you would like to accomplish. For example, achieving a majority of the market share in your area is an objective. With this objective, you may want to implement one of several strategies, such as the following:
- Produce quality products.
- Offer the lowest prices.
- Provide excellent customer service.
Tactics Tell How
In the above example, let’s say you try to increase your market share by providing excellent customer service. It then becomes necessary to develop one or more tactics to support your strategy. For instance, you could implement any of these tactics:
- Always make your deadlines.
- Follow-up on all installations or sales with calls to ensure customer satisfaction.
- Write-up case studies about your work and publish them on your website or Facebook page.
Once you have developed a list of viable tactics, you can focus your efforts on your strategy and ignore situations that distract you from your objective.
Strategies Define a Company
When thinking about strategies, it is important to ensure they are want you really want for your business, because ultimately, it will be defined by the strategies you choose. If you want to deliver excellent customer service, you don’t have to focus on lowering your prices. If your tactics are sound, you will become known as the company that looks after its customers and treats them well. There may be better and cheaper products on the market, but that is not your concern.
“Competitive strategy is about being different,” says professional strategist Michael Porter. “It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.”
Read the full article by Harry Hollander of Moraware here: Objectives, Strategy and Tactics