Wylie’s Basics of Strategy

You’d be surprised how many strategies get this wrong. Learning to think this way changed my life. Let me share this with you, maybe it can change yours.

I’ve been writing digital marketing strategies for many years. This is the most basic, fundamental way that I can describe strategic work. When I first tried to write strategy I got this wrong – I wrote fluffy & vapid slide copy.

So how does one learn to think strategically? You can start with the fundamentals.

What are the fundamentals of strategy?

This is a strategy at its core, fundamental level:

• A defined objective.
• Identification of the obstacles between you and the objective.
• A plan to overcome the obstacles and reach the objective.

What is a plan?

• A series of prioritized, sequenced, and attainable activities that lead to the desired outcome.

The team I train & lead conducts analysis & research which supports strategic decision making. What is the purpose of research & analysis?

• Research is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
• The goal is usually to reduce informational entropy (reduce the amount of what you don’t know) so that a decision-maker can make a more informed decision (a smart strategic bet).

Check out http://goodbadstrategy.com/ if you’re interested in further study.

I tell junior analysts that learning to think strategically is a process that takes time to master in each discipline. It takes several years to learn SEO strategy, paid media strategy, etc. with omnichannel strategy as the capstone. Failure is also part of their progress towards mastery. However, this fundamental principle should inform the whole process.

P.S.

I know this is incredibly simple and seems obvious, but obvious things are often overlooked. And you will find that the more sophisticated your thinking gets about many complex subjects – the more you will tend to simplify them and boil them down to fundamentals. It’s part of my goal with this blog – to articulate things like this, even when they’re obvious – because they’re often missed.

These fundamentals are often missing from many strategies – you can read the resource linked above if you’d like to learn some examples – but you’ve probably seen plenty of bad strategies already over the course of your career.