Marketing strategy

What marketing is

Marketing is a set of tools that positions a business in the consumer brain. Sales are transactional. Branding is art. Marketing is the grey between them. If you do not communicate the product, the business does not exist.

Where the plan starts

Do not write a strategy and then hunt for a budget. Identify the context of the need. Reverse-engineer the end consumer. Pull the strategy from the constraint. Content is king. Context is God.

Who we will not sell to

Do not sell to people who are unsellable. Vet the buyer as they vet you. There is no time to convince. Awareness is the job. Convincing is a mistake.

Decisions the strategy has to make

• Who is in front of us, and what they feel before we speak.
• Where their attention is underpriced today.
• Which culture around them can move the decision.
• What the budget can fund: twenty percent to make, eighty percent to find the ads that drive the business.

Every company is a media company above and beyond. The creative is the variable. The math of buying an ad is a commodity.