“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” - Sun Tzu

In the age of instant gratification, marketers face an increasingly difficult challenge of reaching their target audience. The emerging technologies in the marketing landscape are a dime a dozen, and marketers are left with the task of frantically sorting through which technologies are worth their time - and which are not.

But have marketers lost sight of their roots? The foundation of marketing requires answers to four questions:

• What is the insight?

• What is our objective?

• What is our strategy?

• What are the tactics we will use?

In the chaos of today’s technological landscape, marketers get lost, often getting stuck on the tactical aspects of marketing while neglecting the rest of the traditional marketing process. Some marketers have trouble distinguishing strategy and tactics! 

In short, here’s what all marketers need to remember:

• Insight - Correlations, causations, patterns, anything we have learned from research and/or observation

• Objective - A goal based on the insight

• Strategy - How we plan to achieve that goal

• Tactic - The methods we use to execute our strategy

See how the Greeks used Insight, Objective, Strategy, and Tactics to defeat the Trojans:

By clearly defining the insights, objectives, strategy, and tactics up front, marketers can conquer their challenges much like the Greeks conquered the Trojans in the famous war.