Everyone knows what goals are: an outcome or a result we desire. We achieve goals through strategies and tactics. What are strategies and tactics, exactly, and what’s the difference between them? Keep reading and you’ll see for yourself. At the end, I have a set of questions you can answer for yourself to develop your own strategies and tactics for your blog.
Strategy: a long term plan of action designed to achieve a goal.
Tactic: a limited plan of action, like a procedure or a workflow. Tactics carry out a strategy.
Here’s an example: a blogging/business goal might be to build up an audience of over 5,000 email subscribers and profit from them.
Example Strategies
- Provide value to the subscribers over the long haul (give them stuff they like so they stay subscribed).
- Build trust from subscribers over time.
- Get feedback from the subscribers (so that we know what they like and will buy).
- Offer subscribers products for sale (profiting from the list is a goal).
- Offer subscribers investment opportunities (they and you make money).
Example Tactics
- Run a specific email marketing campaign that uses automation and autoresponders (emails which are pre-written and sent out according to schedule of timed releases).
- Provide surveys to get subscriber feedback.
- Encourage replies to emails to get subscriber feedback.
- Use email marketing analytics (such as provided by Aweber) to understand subscriber preferences.
- Provide an incentive (such as a free download) in exchange for joining the list.
- Use a scarcity tactic in order to motivate action, such as a limited quantity or time frame.
- Use an affiliate program so your subscribers can make money for themselves and you.
- Use pop-overs in order to increase the number of sign-ups from site visitors.
- Use pay-per-click advertising to attract new sign-ups.
- Use landing pages to sell products.
- Use a blog to show authority, build trust, get audience feedback, strengthen relationships with audience, and encourage subscriptions to the list.
You Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated
The difference between strategies and tactics is much more than semantic. You can separate them from each other, you should separate them from each other. Not knowing the difference between them and confusing the two can get you into trouble.
In the example above, some of the tactics could be used for other strategies and goals besides profiting from an email list. They could be used to grow social media followers and friends. Some of the tactics above could be used in blog posts and via RSS to increase subscribers without selling them anything.
Tactics are the Visible Part
Remember, tactics support a strategy, and a strategies support a goal. People get all hung up on the tactics or confuse tactics and strategies with each other. This causes people to view certain tactics as unsavory or even unethical across the board when they shouldn’t. If the goals and strategies are what are unethical, the tactics will seem so as well, because they are the visible part of the process.
If your goal is to grow numbers at all costs as automatically as possible and then rip people off with a quasi-legal product (the opposite of my example), you may use some of the same tactics above.
But it isn’t the tactics which make the effort deplorable. The tool is not to blame (this is what’s at the heart of arguments in support of 2nd ammendment to the Constitution of the United States). Steel can be forged into plows or into swords. Technological tactics can be used for a well-deserved profit or for rapacious greed.
Mistakes Were Made
People make a mistake when they only consider tactics and they never see anything higher than tactics. In other words, they don’t have any real strategies or goals. Tactics in this case are like great special effects in a lame movie: nobody will invest their time or money into it and it flops.
Define Your Goals, Strategies, and Tactics
Ponder what you are doing with your blog: ask yourself the following questions and write down your answers:
- What are my long-term goals?
- What strategies am I engaged in that support these goals?
- What tactics am I engaged in that support those strategies?
- Am I engaged in tactics without a goal?
- Do I have any goals for which I haven’t developed any strategies or tactics?
- Do I need different goals?
- Do I need different strategies?
- Finally, do I need different tactics?
If you need individualized help with your spedific situation, talk to me. That’s what I do.
[photo credit: romainguy and Futurist Movies]
[...] più critiche esiste sempre almeno un modo per ottenere ciò che vuoi. NoteVedi al riguardo anche questo post [...]
Michael,
Right on the mark.
Focusing on tactics instead of strategies means that you’ll be prey to every opportunity monger pitching the “The Number One Secret To Getting 5,000 Subscribers In 30 Days!”
With a solid Strategy, you’re better equipped to CHOOSE opportunities that make sense.
Thanks again for the wisdom.
John
So would the shotgun or scattershot approach be considered a strategy or a tactic? hah. Either way you’re right the tactics should support the strategy which should support the goal. It’s a great post and nicely written.
I mentioned something recently about how you should focus on your goals rather than the tools (talking about keeping up with the latest tools). The tools that people use to implement a strategy should be merely supportive of the strategy instead of making them the strategy…or something like that. Regardless, you said it a lot better in this post…excellent.
@John – Exactly! Hence my stressing of planning, lately, because in tough times people may be more susceptible to those kinds of messages.
@James – You’re right about tools, because tactics are often carried out by specific tools. Good call!
Great article. I suppose to make an analogy, we could look at Mixed Martial Arts (the UFC, for example).
- Your goal is to win the fight.
- Your strategy might be to not use your strength, but rather your quickness to win over the stronger opponent.
- Your tactics might be a quick leg kick and then back away. Then a couple quick jabs and then duck and work your angles.
I have a system that works quite well for discovering my strategies and tactics (though I never really thought of them like that but I suppose that’s what they are).
I write down my goal where I want to be in X amount of time, say 10 years.
Then I work my plan backwards. Where am I in 5 years and what must I have accomplished to get there. Then 1 year, then one month, all the way down to what I need to do today.
This gives me a clear plan. Planning your strategies forward I think is a little like driving blind, it’s hit or miss if you will get to your goal.
Just because time is linear doesn’t mean we have to think that way all the time.
@John – Starting from the end and working backwards is what I advise my clients (which you can hear in the call I recorded with Vicki a few posts ago).
I like the fighting analogy.
Hey Michael, great post.
i really like the way that you broke it all down, especially since I am about to sit down and layout some goals and strategies this weekend. The only thing I must say is that I do not feel that pop-overs work, in fact they may alienate some. I feel that if people like you, they will find a way to subscribe no matter what, and if they do not like you, no amount of pop-overs will persuade them. Just my 2 cents.
You are doing a great job of building the list though, and the site is better than ever. Keep it up!
@Conrad – They say timing is everything! I hope it helps. When it comes to marketing, testing is what you go with, not feelings. The pop-over has tripled my subscription rate.
Well, I think you just converted me on the pop-overs
Numbers don’t lie!