1.3 Tactics Change - Strategies Do Not

While the tactics used to execute marketing plans constantly evolve—for example, the emerging opportunities with social media and mobile smartphone marketing are new marketing tools still evolving—the strategies that lead to successful marketing plans have remained surprisingly consistent over time. This book will teach you the strategies that have been proven effective at generating customer excitement and sales, using contemporary tactics as vehicles for successful delivery—knowing that these will certainly change as time goes by and more effective tactics and new opportunities emerge.

Futurists say that as a rule of thumb, 60 percent of the jobs that will be available 10 years from now haven't been invented yet. With that in mind, it becomes all the more important for future marketers to steep themselves in knowing effective strategies, as the evolution of business and technology and the unseen and unknown opportunities of the future will certainly affect how we market our products and services.

The tool box that marketers use is fairly easy to compartmentalize.

Branding & Strategy

• Message Development

• Research Primary / Secondary

• Brand Strategy

• Brand Positioning

• Brand Personality

Marketing & Communications

• Communication Strategy

• Integrated Marketing Plans

• Traditional Offline / Online Advertising & Promotions

• Web Design and Development

• Environmental Consciousness

• Packaging

Social Media

• Campaigns - Promotions/Contests

• Tracking

Web Marketing

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Search Engine Marketing (PPC, Banners, Linking)

• Blog Marketing Optimization

• Social Media Optimization

Think about each of these as keys of the piano. Great marketers need training to learn which keys to push at just the right moment to maximize their effectiveness and how to blend them together to act in synergy with the other keys to create harmonious marketing programs that are all singing together from the same hymnal.