Busting the myth – only senior marketing professionals are good at strategy
As I’ve been embarking on my journey to become a mentor to communications and marketing professionals, I’ve been working with some old colleagues to understand more about their development journey. Finding out where their sticking points have been and opportunities where I can help them more (and in turn help others). What I have noticed is the biggest challenge that most of them face, and struggle to get to grips with, is strategy. In fact even the idea of strategy is something many believe is out of their league, and therefore, something that more senior communications and marketing managers tackle.
Yes, there are elements that an experienced marketing strategist should oversee, but in my opinion strategy is everywhere and for everyone. It’s actually all around us and isn’t just something that is discussed in boardrooms.
From trying to get approval for a piece of work, getting on the right side of an important colleague, or even getting your friends to agree to ordering in your favourite takeaway. Even my one year old has a great strategy of getting me to give him a biscuit!
However, because we’re all very time poor, it’s hard to go into the strategic part of operations when there is copy to edit, products to launch, project plans to update, events to manage, and senior leaders to please. It sort of falls off the radar, not spoken about until it’s the time of year to plan for the following year (which is usually now). So here, I want to bust the myth, and share what I think are the basics of what you need to be strategic:
-
Be Curious – Understand why you’re approaching a project the way you are. How is it different to other ways of approaching the task, what is it helping drive? How and why will it impact business objectives? Is it relevant to your audience? Is it on brand? What’s the aim of the project, and how does it impact your audience?
By being curious of current projects, it will help you to develop your own natural curiosity when you’re starting from scratch.
-
Be Creative – Just because it has always been done a certain way, doesn’t mean it should be done that way again. This year alone shows us that it’s not all black and white, and everyone, including senior managers are finding new and different ways of engaging their audience.
-
Get Clarity – Strategies are best when they are clear and simple. You shouldn’t need five sentences to explain it when two will do the job. Build clear lines between your strategy, the business objectives and your audience, so it’s obvious to everyone why and how you’re approaching your communications and marketing strategy.
If you want to learn more – read what Forbes think about strategic thinkers.
And remember, if you’re a communications and marketing manager or someone working with others who operate content, channels and community engagement, remember to question how and why they are communicating in the way that they are. Encourage them to be Curious, Creative and Clear.
