Strategy is not Tactics

I’ve said that strategy is one of four essential elements of product marketing. But you have to know what strategy is…and what it is not.

To illustrate the difference between strategy and tactics, it helps to differentiate between abstract, long term goals and concrete, short term goals.

If your goal is to better the world, that’s a strategy.

If your goal is to excel in a particular industry, that’s a strategy.

Although strategies can change. Those who know of Nokia as a telecommunications company, and those who remember Nokia as a phone supplier, are not old enough to remember Nokia’s beginnings as a pulp mill in 1865.

If your goal is to secure business from a specific prospect, that’s a tactic. Or it should be.

Fleming Companies secured a 10-year contract in 2001 as the main supplier of groceries to Kmart, accounting for 20% of Fleming’s revenue. Kmart cancelled that contract when it declared bankruptcy a year later. Fleming filed a $1.4 billion claim in Kmart’s bankruptcy case…but only got $385 million. Fleming itself ended up in bankruptcy court in 2003.

But Fleming’s strategy was to excel at food wholesaling through acquisition and innovation.

It’s just that one tactical blunder upended that strategy.

Whether Bredemarket pivots from biometric content to resume writing (not likely), I am presently equipped to address both your strategic and tactical product marketing needs. If I can help you, talk to me at https://bredemarket.com/mark/.