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Strategy & Operating Notes

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    Things can look great on paper. But paper isn’t reality.

    The longer something is just on paper, the less you’re learning.

    As Jaylen Brown said, throw the ball up.

    ∞

    What’s Your Strategy In 3 Words or Less?

    Many strategies contain multiple ideas, but cohesive strategies can boil everything down to one organizing principle.

    There is no universal principle*.

    It is hard to both focus and diversify.
    Or expand and simplify.
    Or change the experience and create a new primary channel.

    If the principle changes, your strategy needs to change too.

    *growth doesn’t count. It’s the outcome, not the foundation.

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    Sometimes you don’t need to strategize or analyze or “dig in and ideate a plan.”

    Sometimes you just need to put your head down and grind.

    Ideas without execution are like opinions; everyone has them and few people care.

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    What loop is your marketing stuck in?
    What groove should you be locked in?

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    What is it your brand actually offers?

    Not the product category or service line or buzzword. Or, god forbid, the “lifestyle”.

    Why do people choose you?

    What is your house speciality?

    ∞

    Brands invest time thinking about their message and how to reach people.

    But what happens if they find you through a channel you didn’t plan for?

    Or join halfway through your carefully crafted funnel?

    Or start at the end and work back to the beginning?

    Is your brand consistent from all angles?

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    But what do you want your audience to do?

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    Not talking about something doesn’t mean a story isn’t told about it.

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    You can’t day trade your way to a strong brand

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    The Ghost in the Map 🧭

    Making a marketing strategy is a bit like making a map.

    You plot the landscape. You mark the features you deem noteworthy.
    You create potential paths between them.

    Ultimately you end with a starting point, a destination, a recommended route between the two, and maybe a couple back up routes. (And hopefully a measurement system that lets you know when you get where you’re going.)

    But just like the trap of proxy metrics, it’s important to remember:

    Maps don’t show reality, they give you a way of visualizing it.

    And much like a strategy or plan:

    Every map focuses on some things and leaves other things out. Making a map means making choices about what’s important to you. What the world is really, truly like in every single detail doesn’t matter; what matters is what specifically about the world you want to show. Orientation’s part of that—it can help emphasize what information is significant. And you can orient a map however you want, as long anyone else who needs to read it can figure out how to orient it too.

    from Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford 📚