Marketing Tactics without Strategy
How to avoid the everything but the kitchen sink go-to-market strategy
I sat in a stakeholder meeting for a product launch. The marketing plan was comprehensive, detailed, and ambitious.
Because, during the discovery and intake process, leadership and key stakeholders demanded…
“We need emails to our database, a press release, organic social posts, paid social campaigns, sales handouts, customer webinars, an explainer video, trade show materials, a landing page, digital ads, partner promotions, influencer outreach, blog content, and an SMS campaign, and…”
Basically, they wanted everything. And everyone nodded along as the list grew. It’s what launches always look like, right?
Then I asked two questions nobody usually asks:
To the stakeholders: What are your goals for this launch, beyond saying we launched it? Is it a certain number of downloads, leads, or sales?
To my team: Based on past launches, which of these tactics actually moved the needle with our specific audience segments?
The room went quiet.
Nobody had the answers to these questions.
Goals for the Marketing Launch
It’s not for marketing to decide what the goals are for a product launch. It’s marketing’s responsibility to decide how to get there based on expertise of the market, audience, and other factors.
At a minimum, someone (product, leadership, sales, stakeholder, etc.) needs to be giving you a target. Whether that’s revenue, number of customers, or even number of leads (which marketing can help back into), if there’s no objective, what’s the point?
Don’t accept a project without understanding the goals. Otherwise, how can you succeed? To say “it’s out there now” is usually not going to be enough.
When Resources are Limited, Focus on What Works
and leave room for experimentation
Regarding our go-to-market strategy and tactics, when we dug into the data, we discovered something interesting. For this particular B2B audience, only about four of these tactics had meaningfully contributed to previous launch results.
The others had consumed budget and time without delivering measurable impact.
That doesn’t mean the other tactics don’t help contribute to success. But in a time where resources and budgets are tight, focus helps. The other stuff can come later, if needed.
This experience reminded me why expertise isn’t just knowing all possible marketing tactics. It’s understanding which ones work for specific audiences in specific contexts.
For technical decision-makers.
For business leaders.
For end users.
How can you refine the plan, going deeper on fewer tactics tailored to each audience segment, rather than spreading yourselves thin across everything in the marketing playbook?
Sometimes the most valuable contribution isn’t adding more to the plan - it’s having the confidence to do less, but better.
And, probably most importantly, packing your plan with the usual tactics doesn’t leave any room for experimentation. Allowing for one experimental tactic in each plan ensures you are testing, learning, and growing for future success.
What’s been your experience with launch tactics? Have you found certain approaches work particularly well with specific audiences?