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strategy is the most important part of communications
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about strategy vs tactics and planning vs doing. It amazes me that there is an argument about why a strategy is not needed, or is just for show. It seems that there are two schools of people in our industry. The thinkers. Let’s call them the Le Penseur‘s. And the doers. Or let’s call them the Privates.
This post is my attempt to prove the Le Penseur is the more important.
Strategy is the most important part of any communications and here’s why
Whether it is public relations or marketing, advertising or communications you need a strategy. And, not just any strategy, but a guiding framework which seeks to identify your goals, your audiences, your messages and finally, your tactics. This guiding framework also acts as your benchmark and your means of measurement. Who gives a fuck about measurement I can hear you say. Well, your clients for one. And your peers.
A conversation with Ben Phillips today, further solidified in my mind that people still aren’t valuing strategy enough. Too often we allow ourselves to skip over our planning and dive straight into the fun part – the creative (for marketing or advertising) or the media release (for media relations). But you see, an advertisement or a media release is not a strategy or a campaign. It’s a tactic. And a tactic that needs to relate back to a goal, an audience and message.
It’s no use trying to fit a square peg through a round hole. But if you had a strategy which identified two or three solutions such as using a round peg, using a smaller square peg or indeed not using the peg at all, you are on your way to achieving your goal, yes?
Value thought before execution
Ok, I rarely quote Seth Godin (actually, I think this quote pops my Seth cherry), but this post seems to capture where I’m heading. He says:
Most of us are afraid of strategy, because we don’t feel confident outlining one unless we’re sure it’s going to work. And the ‘work’ part is all tactical, so we focus on that. (Tactics are easy to outline, because we say, “I’m going to post this.” If we post it, we succeed. Strategy is scary to outline, because we describe results, not actions, and that means opportunity for failure.)
In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy… and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place.
Without the strategy, you’re merely doing
A good strategy seeks to preempt your tactical failures. It should act as the means to understand what is the point of difference for your organisation, your client or your message. It should provide the guide to respond in case a tactic fails or something or someone comes from left field. Your strategy should form a cohesive platform for its stakeholders. In that it should bring your client, your team (whether they are media relations, digital, creative, public affairs, production) and your ethos together.
So why is it that we aren’t all singing the praises of the strategist? Is it because we fear our clients won’t want to invest the time and money in the planning before they see the sexy creative? Or perhaps it’s because the skills aren’t there, we don’t have the pool of strategists at hand like we do the rest of the team?
My thoughts are that people just simply don’t understand the true value of a strategy. They don’t understand how a strategy is developed and they don’t understand the currency that strategic planning holds over the marketing mix. That is until something goes wrong, and shit hits the fan.
If we were to sell one benefit of the role of strategy, it should be this. A strategy should enable you to prove your success. And not just tactical success, but a holistic win which secures further investment from your client and perhaps even a couple of EFFIES for your mantle piece.
What do you think? Where does strategy fit in your mix? Are you a Private or a Le Penseur?
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7 Comments
Oct 22, 20093:12 pm
Great post Karalee. I think for many communicators, the trap is that the tactics and the implementation are the “fun stuff”. It’s also the stuff we’re most comfortable with and so we quickly default to rolling up the sleeves and getting stuck in before taking the time to think through the strategy and address things like objectives, key messages, audience and – most importantly – measurement and evaluation (which needs to be thought of at the start, not the end!). It’s a pity, because it’s in the strategic thinking and the stepping out of our process that we do a much better job of showing our stakeholders the value of communication.
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Oct 22, 20099:54 pm
Karalee, well said. This applies not just to comms, but in my world as well. The biggest issue we have though is been given effective time to define a clear strategy, get agreement to execute and support during the roadmap to implementation. So we need the doers as well. My problem is need to be a bit of both, but I’m more of a penseur expected to be more of a private
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Oct 22, 20099:58 pm
Agree with you one-hundred percent!
On my old blog (replaced) I wrote an article “Conceiving an Online Publishing Strategy” which made similar points about the importance of Strategy. Specifically the idea that without strategy you have no idea where you are headed (quote from piece) …
“Have you ever heard of the ‘random walk principle’? In a nutshell, it proposes that if you set out walking, making random decisions about where you are going, then your finishing point (end point with the highest probability) is likely to be where you started.”
In other words – if you don’t know where your headed you are not likely to make any headway. In the contemporary world, people want to ‘dive in’ and leave the planning, analysis and thinking out. No one wants to pay for strategy either, despite its capacity to save project costs and deliver better outcomes (read: more money).
Great piece Karalee, enjoyed reading it. Hope you change someone’s mind.
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Oct 22, 200910:31 pm
I’m going to, respectfully, disagree. I think sometimes too much emphasis is placed on strategy and not enough on doing.
That’s not to say there is no place for strategy of course, we’ve all encountered people who embark on a course of action without stopping to ask why.
But in my experience there’s often too great a proportion of time devoted to planning and crafting the perfect communications strategy.
And there’s something to be said for a Ready, Fire, Aim approach and for learning on the go, especially in an environment where circumstances are changing rapidly.
Anyway, my 2 cents. Of course, I probably should have thought that all through a little more before posting 
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9:44 am
I’m with you, Karalee. In fact, I don’t get how you can start implementing tactics without a strategic framework. Having said that, often the strategy is not rocket science and doesn’t need to take a long time to articulate. And even a singe tactical program like media relations can be applied in a strategic manner and with a strategic mindset without going down the whole strategic box and dice path.
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