Strategy: the Name of the Game

When it comes to business, it turns out, your mom is right—get your ducks in a row, and you can do anything you set your mind to.

We sat down and chatted with our own savvy strategist, Account Director Valette Piper-Bledsoe, about the importance of strategic marketing and communications. Valette earned some of that savvy early in her career, when she was building her very first marketing plan.

“We had a budget. And we had goals. But I knew we needed something more—something to connect the two,” Valette told us. “That’s what strategy does. It provides the connection, the filter through which you can put any tactical ideas and determine, ‘will they help reach our goals and our audience?’ From a marketing perspective, strategy helps you decide how you can best achieve your goals—in the most effective, most cost-efficient way, with the greatest impact.”

A strategic marketing and communications plan does much more than just inform those tactics, according to Valette. “The effects reach far beyond the marketing plan. The marketing strategies let everyone in the organization step back and prioritize the best way to achieve the goals. They provide clarity and get everyone on the same page. And, since marketing strategies always support overall business strategies, they help write the organization’s common playbook, and underline how marketing is supporting sales.”

Plan your work and work your plan. It may sound easy enough, but it involves forethought, groundwork and commitment. Fortunately, the effort pays off in a major way. “The benefits are real. Organizations are more effective and more efficient. Everyone knows what should be measured. The outcome is better executed, more effective tactics achieved with measurable results,” says Valette. Another bonus: “Strategies give you focus over a period of time. Strategies are often consistent for at least a few years. So, strategizing isn’t necessarily the easy way, but to us, it’s the only way to truly win.”

At ColinKurtis, that’s why we (and your mom) believe that an intentional strategic marketing and communications plan is a winning combination. Because, after all, the game isn’t going to win itself! And a goal without a plan…well that’s just a sitting duck.