Category: Strategy

  • Growth Marketing: Exploit, Explore, Exit

    Scaling marketing at organizations going through rapid growth can be a marketer’s dream. It’ll feel fast, a bit chaotic, but there are usually significant resources to invest in scale. Many companies that are scaling won’t hire isolated growth teams. Marketing and growth are now almost fully merged. That means marketing departments are built as cross-functional…

  • Starting Flywheels: Inbound & Micro-Influencers

    Starting Flywheels: Inbound & Micro-Influencers

    When you’re launching something new or joining a stagnant company it’s critical to get short-term wins. This isn’t really about that. Because it’s also important to execute for long-term, sustainable growth. And it has to start immediately. Quick wins and long-term growth aren’t mutually exclusive. This particular data (screenshot from actual Google Analytics above with…

  • Performance Historian

    Updated: 03/20/2021 Every business would benefit from a performance historian. Financial documents and the accounting department are the general business historians for organizations large and small. But you also need someone or something that catalogs what you’re learning. There needs to be something helping us understand what’s working, what’s not working, and what’s next. Currently,…

  • Structured, but flexible thinking

    Observation \\ Making Observations Insight \\ Identifying Insights Decision \\ Determining Decisions Execution \\ Effectively Executing Outcome \\ Measuring Outcomes Learning \\ Clarify Learning ∞ the journey is the destination ∞ After you’ve identified your objective, all strategy starts with an observation and is refined from learning (a form of observation). If you use the…

  • 5 points of strategy execution.

    Execution doesn’t always equal alignment. It’s coordination across units. Execution doesn’t mean stick to the plan. It’s continuous, disciplined reallocation. Communication doesn’t equal understanding. Simple, consistent communication does. Performance culture doesn’t drive execution. It’s the right behaviors that fuel execution. Execution isn’t driven from the top. It happens in the trenches.

  • Trust the process.

    The process has to be complete and rigorous. Here’s my process for digital marketing (at a high level): Why? the brand. What are the business goals? Develop strategy to accomplish goals. Develop the framework, recipe, and tactics. Execute, measure, and learn.