Strategy at 3 Levels
Hey!
I’m going to share a quick hit this morning that coincides with some new notes I’ve been making about strategy.
This morning, I want to share with you my idea of the 3 levels of strategy:
Corporate
Brand
Marketing
Let me explain each of them quickly and how they pull together.
At a corporate level, you have the big picture the overall strategy for a business that consists of the 5 components that I talked about a bit this year:
Ambition
Focus
Value
Resources
Actions
The second level is the brand level.
Your brand strategy should include things like:
Your brand diagnosis
Your brand codes
Your targeting
Your position
Finally, you’ll see the third level is the level of marketing strategy.
Here you will see your marketing strategy through the lens of:
Segmentation/Targeting/Positioning (STP)
SMART Objectives
Funnels
4 Ps
A different way of looking at this stuff is by thinking in terms of different styles of travel.
Your corporate level is a satellite, orbiting the earth, able to get a good view of the world but without a great deal of ability to zoom in on anything for any period of time. You see the big picture and move quickly onto other things.
At the brand level, you are flying in a jet…maybe even the Concorde. You have a more nuanced vision of the world you are dealing with, but you may not get the full picture of the company because you might not have responsibilities at the corporate level.
More importantly, like a jet, your brand is focused on a destination. Due to weather conditions, you might get pushed off course, but you have time to get back on track. Your flight path is called your through-line.
Finally, with the marketing level, you are like a skydiver and you are floating down towards a landing spot. This is the point in your strategy that you are closest to the ground and your view of the overall business might be most limited in the moment. But it also requires a great deal of skill to hit your landing spot.
If you want to really exaggerate this you can think of tactics as driving your car around a city that you don’t know very well with your GPS on the fritz. But that’s a metaphor for a different day.
Right now, just think about your strategy at the three levels and ask yourself which one needs the most attention.
Let me know.
Dave