422 - Tactics vs. Strategy: The Difference That Changes Everything

Hey Ian, welcome back to Builder Funnel Radio. Today I want to talk about tactics versus strategy. And I had a business owner recently say, he said this exact quote, he said, we're focusing on tactics without a clear strategy. And so I want to talk about the difference today because it's really important.

and when you think about tactics you're just looking at the you know the action item the the thing right it's I want to do google ads or I think I should do social posts I think I should do more emails I should invest in SEO I should get a CRM or marketing automation or whatever that is Those are just things to do. And so if you are reaching out to someone and saying, hey, can I hire you to do this tactic, then there's a very high likelihood that they can do the tactic. but that should follow strategy.

And so let's talk about what strategy actually is, because strategy answers a series of questions. And those questions are, who specifically are you trying to reach with your marketing? So when we're talking about marketing strategy, who are those ideal clients and what are they searching for? Where are they located?

How do we get in front of them? The first strategy question is who are those people? The next thing is what projects do we actually want to do, right? So the tactics that you're going to apply to your marketing are going to look very different if you answer one question as I want to serve the top of the market, the high budget, high end homeowners.

I want to work with people that want to do million dollar plus remodeling projects versus if you say hey we want to do quick turn projects We want to do kitchen refinishing so replacing countertops flooring cabinets but we don want to be moving walls around We just want to come in and basically reskin everything Those are going to be very different audiences. It's going to guide you to target different locations within your market. It's going to dictate different messaging in your ads, in your content, it's also going to change potentially many of the tactics that you use to get in front of those people.

And so when you skip the strategy piece, and really a lot of marketing strategy is blended across the entire company strategy, right? Because if you say, hey, we want to serve the top end of the market, that will require a different maybe brand look, different messaging, different website look and feel, but it will also require different types of customer experiences. So if you are serving the top end of the market, you might bake things into your sales process. You might have more of a white glove approach to the way you deliver, you know, the project and bring that customer through, you know, design and into construction versus if you are just coming in and replacing some countertops, right?

It might change the type of people that you hire. So all of these things stem from the company strategy and then your marketing strategy in terms of what you're trying to accomplish. And if you forget those things, then you jump to these tactics, which could be the right tactics, but then the tactics fall flat. And so that's why we see a lot of companies, number one, fail with a lot of the tactics.

But number two, when you do hire a lot of marketing agencies or freelancers, they've built their business to do a thing, right? Hey, we will shoot your video, we will do your SEO, we will run your ads. But then this is the type of scenario that happens all the time is, you know, we'll come in and look at an ad campaign. And, you know, it's a high-end design build remodeler and then we look at the keywords that are being targeted and it's things like contractor near me.

There is some kitchen remodeling bathroom remodeling but then you might see you know handyman because the agency basically said oh we just trying to get construction work And they don have the depth of expertise to know either the industry or they didn ask the larger strategy questions first to make sure that they on the same page with you And so if you jump straight to tactics without going through and saying, this is who we are, this is who we serve, these are the projects that we want.

These are the things that we don't want. A lot of the strategy question is actually saying, we don't want to serve this audience. We don't want to work in this part of town. We don't want to take on these types of projects.

So eliminating those things and then saying, okay, but this is who we are. And then when we layer on the tactics from there, we can say, okay, we're doing SEO. what keywords are going to match what that high-end audience is searching for or what the the quick turn projects are serving whatever you you decided but what are those keywords that actually match same with your ads what are the keywords that we want to actually bid on and spend money on and drive clicks to when they come to our website when they come to our landing page is the language is the messaging actually speaking to that exact audience or is there a mismatch?

And if there's a mismatch, then you're just doing the tactic without actually stepping back and looking at the global strategy of who are you trying to attract, but then also who are you trying to repel when somebody lands on that landing page? All the proof that you're building, all the project spotlights, you need those to also match your ideal audience and your ideal projects. What are you trying to attract? I've seen so many custom builders, high-end remodelers and they say, hey, we only do these high-end projects, and then we go to the website and it's kind of blurry photos or photos of smaller projects that maybe they did 10 years ago as they were ramping up.

You have to realize when somebody lands on your website, that's their impression of what you do. If there is a big gap in those two things, they're just going to leave. And so now your tactics might be correct. Hey, we have project photos, we have a process page but if the messaging and the type of photos is in misalignment with your ideal audience then your tactic is just going to fall flat Then you will look at the tactic and think we doing the wrong things You might be doing the exact right things but you're doing them the wrong way.

And so that's why you have to start with the strategy questions first and build the plan around that strategy. And then you end up with a long list of actionable tactics that you need to execute on and then those things will actually do the work that you want them to do because they're all driving at the right audience, the right projects, and the right outcome for your business. So if you haven't sat down to do some of the strategy work and defining what is your company about, who do you serve, where will you serve them, what projects will you actually execute on, if you haven't defined all those and then engineered all of your tactics to flow from that, then that is a great takeaway for today is to sit down and spend, you know, 10 to 15 minutes and jotting down the answers to those questions.

Then you can start to chip away at building the right action plan based on the answers to those questions. And I think if you just quickly pull up your website, pull up your social media, pull up the last couple of emails that you wrote, pull up your ads, and then look at those and benchmark them against, hey, this is the audience I defined, the projects I defined, this is my strategy and my approach, I want to target these people. Do all those things match? Do they line up?

Are they driving at that? And if the answer is no, then you have some quick action items that you can take that will actually make a meaningful difference in your business and not just, oh, I'm doing the wrong tactics or I should try some different tactics. And that's where you get stuck in that trap of trying something for 30 or 60 days and then cycling to the next tactic. If you're driving everything at the strategic outcomes that you want, those tactics will actually get you closer to that goal.