It's the middle of August.
Both my kids are back in school and the house is quiet again during the day.
And every year right around now I get a little anxious, because football is about to start.
I absolutely love football, but the trade-off is that my Saturdays and Sundays get slightly less productive.
Anyway.
All that football on the brain got me thinking about a word I hear constantly and almost never hear defined.
Strategy.
Email strategy. Retention strategy. Marketing strategy.
I've been guilty of this myself. You say it on a call, everyone nods, and nobody stops to ask what you actually mean.
So let’s actually stop and lay it out.
Because once you understand what strategy is and HOW to develop it will totally change how you approach your marketing.
Strategy ≠ Tactics Are Not The Same Thing
This is how I've come to define strategy because it's the one that makes the most sense to me
Strategy is the approach you chose to achieve your goal. It's your theory of how you win.
Tactics are the specific actions you take to carry that approach out.
Let’s look at an example.
Goal: increase six-month LTV, because it will increase profitability and allow us to acquire more customers and scale.
Strategy: Get more first-time buyers to a second purchase.
Tactics: a post-purchase automation with a second-order offer, two campaigns a month to one-time buyers, a segment built on days since first order.
Notice the goal sits above both of them.
That order matters, and it's the whole reason a lot of “email strategy” plans fall apart. People jump from the goal straight to the tactics and skip the middle layer entirely.
You see this approach with a lot of big agencies, where they have one playbook that they roll out for every single brand that comes through their door. That's not strategy, that's just using the same tactics
How To Develop an Email Marketing Strategy
1. Start with the goal, and the why.
Not "grow email." What is the business trying to do this quarter, and why does that matter more than the other options? More returning customer revenue. Higher LTV. A bigger list. Pick one and be able to say out loud why it's that one.
2. Decide your approach.
This is the strategy, and it's the layer everyone skips. Given that goal, what's your actual theory of how you get there? Write it as one sentence. If you can't finish the sentence, you don't have a strategy yet.
3. Map out what has to exist.
If your approach is getting first-time buyers to a second purchase, then what needs to be built for that to happen? Which automations, which segments, which offers, what send frequency. This is where tactics get chosen, and now they're getting chosen for a reason.
4. Break it into actions you can control.
This is the part I care about most.
You cannot control revenue. You cannot control LTV. Those are outcomes, and outcomes make terrible to-do lists. Nobody has ever sat down on a Tuesday and done an LTV.
What you can control is whether the post-purchase automation is built by the 15th. Whether two campaigns went out to one-time buyers this month. Whether the segment actually got created.
Build the plan out of things you can do, and let the number be the scoreboard.
Then you check that number every week. Are we pacing toward it or not?
If it's working, leave it alone.
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Guys, Q4 is FAST approaching and this is the time to really lock in your Q4 strategy. It should be more than just SEND MORE EMAILZ LOL.
I'd love to help you make this Q4 your best ever.
Ben
💸 If you’re running a 7–8 figure eCom brand but it still feels like nothing’s working book a free strategy call with me Here.
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