If you go on B2B marketing LinkedIn (God help you), you’ll see a lot of marketers extolling the virtues of “strategic marketing.” But what does “strategic” really mean? That is unclear to many marketers and those who manage or work alongside them.

To me, marketing strategy boils down to three simple questions: What is the business problem marketing can help with? What is the message? Where and how will we distribute the message to evangelize our customers and those who influence them?

Adtech and martech companies sometimes bring me in to answer these strategic questions or to redefine the brand. These amount to the same thing because, to redefine a brand, I need to know what problem marketing is going to help solve, and then I can figure out the story (or message) and how to amplify it.

There are many ways to skin the cat that is strategic marketing or brand story development. But I want to offer my way to help any marketers (or other business people involved in marketing) who may not know how to craft a message or simply want to hear how someone else does it. 

To develop the brand story and conduct this strategic work, I speak to a range of executives and stakeholders within the company (marketers, salespeople, product people). I also speak to customers. Then I speak to people at the company some more. (I learned this process from Paul Knegten, the former CMO of Beeswax and a collaborator of mine.) Ultimately, I write a marketing plan, which covers the:

• Business challenge/opportunity (where we are now, what’s challenging about where we are, and where we need to go)

• Brand story 

• Big three narrative questions (what we do and for whom, how we’re different, why it matters)

• Product stories 

• Customer mindset

• Competitive landscape

• Distribution / channel plan

• Theory of victory

A bit more on each dimension of the plan:

• Business challenge/opportunity (where we are now, what’s challenging about where we are, and where we need to go)

  • Many people think the business problem marketing should always be solving is to drive more leads or generate more pipeline. In a sense, this is correct, but it’s too superficial. There’s something wrong with the business that is preventing pipeline generation, and that’s the problem marketing can help solve. Maybe the company just lacks awareness. Maybe it’s known for one thing and needs to be known for something else to move into a growth area. Maybe it’s viewed as a commodity but is actually a premium product and needs to be viewed as such. These are all more specific business problems that marketing can help remedy.

• Brand story 

  • This is the overall story of the company: why do we exist, what is our identity, and why should that be our identity? For example, The Trade Desk’s story might be, as per its site, “the omnichannel advertising platform built for the open internet.” Why? What product and commercial advantages does The Trade Desk have that make that its ideal positioning? What problems does the story solve? What’s the business opportunity the story helps unlock? You may know that the message on the site is becoming outdated as TTD repositions itself as the champion of the so-called premium internet. That is a positioning move with profound implications for TTD’s business, and it’s the kind of thing strategic marketing can precipitate or help substantiate.

• Big three narrative questions (what we do and for whom, how we’re different, why it matters)

  • These are the three narrative questions any brand story should be able to answer (not coincidentally, they’re also the three questions I expect any company website to answer). What we do and for whom is table stakes, but a lot of adtech companies mess it up. You’ll notice that on the Sharp Pen site, to use my own company as an example, the top text is a rallying cry, “Be more than a commodity,” because we help our clients differentiate themselves (and a lack of differentiation is the no. 1 marketing problem for many adtech companies). But the next line very clearly states what we do and for whom: “We offer C-level marketing strategy, content, and PR for adtech and martech companies.” No ambiguity. And our “Why Sharp Pen?” page clearly articulates how we’re different from other marketing agencies. It helps to include this in a plan to make sure everyone is clear on it and it can be integrated into marketing materials, especially the website, and the sales pitch.

• Product stories (if applicable, expounding on how the overall brand story relates to product stories)

  • Sometimes a company has multiple products, and each relates to the brand story differently. In that case, it can be helpful to articulate the relation between each product and the overall story. This is especially helpful for aligning the overall marketing plan with the vision and work of product marketers. 

• Customer mindset

  • Customers play a central role in shaping the brand story. After all, they’re the ones you want to evangelize, and while it’s OK to want to take them to a new destination and not simply repeat what they love about you back at them, if the message is wholly divorced from existing customers’ praise for the company/product, marketing is likely to fall flat. So, it makes sense to incorporate a write-up of the customer’s mindset into the brand story document. This section essentially validates the new vision.

• Competitive landscape

  • How a company differs from competitors is one of the three key narrative questions, so documenting what competitors are doing and saying and how the company’s message will differentiate it is critical.

• Distribution / channel plan

  • Any marketing message is useless if it isn’t distributed. That starts with the website, which is a source of truth for anyone who engages with your company, but it continues with daily social content, public relations, white papers, case studies, and other forms of content. Having developed a brand story, you want to amplify it daily in the market so that all your customers and those who influence them know who you are, why you’re different, and why you matter.

• Theory of victory

  • This section puts it all together. How will the propagation of the new message (aka marketing) help solve the problem that kicked off the strategic exercise?

In general, marketing is the discipline of building your reputation and relationships. That starts with a clear understanding of the business problem marketing can help with, continues with a message that differentiates you from competitors while galvanizing your customers, and is ultimately executed by amplification: the task of distributing the message to make an impact on customers and those who influence them.

A strategic marketing plan isn’t rocket science. It exists to answer the aforementioned simple questions. But when it does that, it can change a company’s perception in the market, and in business, perception is the ballgame. Compare doing deals with people who don’t know you versus people who not only know you but also know you in the exact way that best positions you to land the deal. That’s the impact of marketing. I’d hate to be the salesperson who has to operate without it.