What’s your strategy? That’s not always a fun question to hear — or answer. But with practice, you’ll be able to lay out the parts of your strategy efficiently and tell a concise, value-focused story about it that others will understand and appreciate.
The way you think about strategy is important. We’ll start there. Next, we’ll move into the strategic outline, the most common parts of a strategy, and the roles those parts play. Finally, we’ll take a look at how to tell a brief and impactful story that’s based on your strategic outline.
Be sure to download the guide that accompanies the information you’re reading here. It offers examples, walk-throughs, and helpful extras.
Thinking about strategy
Think of a strategy as a plan, process, or goal. That way, you can structure it and talk about it effectively.
Your strategy is the what. It’s what your idea will ultimately deliver. The rationale behind your strategy is the why. It’s why you’re proposing the strategy in the first place and why others should care. Use data and insights to form your why.
Set yourself up for success by ignoring the notion that a strategy must be a grand plan that’s complicated and involves a lot of people and requires a bunch of time and money. That kind of thinking will keep you from getting anything done. The simplest strategies often deliver the biggest results.
Starting your strategy outline
Distill your strategic vision into a single sentence. A single sentence keeps you focused when you build your strategic outline and story. A single sentence attracts and holds your audience’s interest.
Here’s an example of one: Increase click-through rates in lead-generation emails by 10% in Q4.
- The why behind it: Click-through rates are flat from quarter to quarter. An increase in Q4 will help the team meet its end-of-year goal.
- The what that it delivers: We will meet our goal on time by increasing click-through rates by 10% in Q4.
SMART at the heart
Strategies that resemble SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) tend to come to fruition, as long as they have the support they need. They’re rational and resistant to bias. Our example above has a SMART structure:
- Specific: You will increase click-through rates in lead-generation emails.
- Measurable: You will increase click-through rates by 10%.
- Achievable: Use the objectives and tactics in your outline to show how you’ll deliver on your strategic promise.
- Relevant: This is the why behind the strategy — the rationale you derived from data and insights.
- Time-bound: You will deliver measurable results in Q4.
Bringing SMART into your strategy shows thoughtful planning and alignment to purpose. It’s a solid way to instill confidence in colleagues and leaders right away.
Finding balance
It’s important to capture the right amount of detail in your single sentence. Too little comes across as detached or conceptual. Too much is hard to follow.
- Too little: Increase click-through rates.
- Too much: Increase click-through rates in lead-generation emails by 10% in Q4 by partnering with Marketing Operations to activate automated A/B testing, and then by testing everything we do to make sure our results are optimized, so that we meet our end-of-year goal.
- Balanced: Increase click-through rates in lead-generation emails by 10% in Q4.
Other parts of the outline
How you are gonna do that? Inevitably, someone will ask. And that’s a good thing because it means your one-sentence strategic statement engaged. The rest of your outline will be the answer.
It’s time to bring the where, how, and when into the conversation. Keep the other parts of the outline to one sentence, too. The rest of the outline, decribed below, shows the path you’ll take to activate the strategy.
- Objectives are where you’ll focus your energy to make the strategy achievable. They are specific, measurable, and time-bound.
- Tactics are how you’ll complete your objectives. They are specific and time-bound actions or deliverables that yield measurable results and demonstrate how the strategy and its objectives are achievable.
- Results are measurable and time-bound outcomes that connect back to specific tactics. They show how and when the strategy will deliver on its promise.
Laying it out
Create a simple diagram. Don’t overthink it. Use the icons, shapes, and fonts included in the software you’d like to use. If you can’t create your outline with pen and paper, then it’s likely too ornate or complicated to serve its purpose.
The examples in the guide we’ve provided use a bracket shape and a font that come standard in PowerPoint. The strategy anchors everything at the beginning, and then breaks into objectives. The objectives flow into tactics. The tactics end with measurable results.
Telling your strategy story
The best strategic stories are concise, organized, and relatable. You won’t likely impress anyone with a long presentation that’s full of tiny details and sub-topics only you understand. Your audience wants a connected, linear story that shows you value their time and that your strategy is compatible with organizational goals and expectations. Let’s build a story from our earlier example.
Meeting our lead-generation goal
Click-through rates from lead-generating emails are flat from quarter to quarter, and that could cause the team to miss its end-of-year goal. That’s why our strategy is to increase clicks by 10% in Q4.
How will we get there? We’ll test calls to action in our lead-generation emails starting July 1.
We’ll use our email marketing platform to A/B test all of our outgoing communications starting July 1; that way, the tests will be automated and consistent. We’ll have automated testing ready by June 15.
Our platform will automatically send our audience the winner from each A/B test. As a result, the call to action most likely to earn clicks will always be in market. This approach will deliver a 10% increase in clicks in Q4 and help the team meet its goal for the year.
This story has four parts. The first is where rationale leads to strategy. The second describes the objective. The third focuses on tactics. The fourth explains the results.
Each part transitions to the next smoothly and quickly, which gives a sense of momentum and prevents you from dwelling or going off on a tangent. You should be able to tell this story — and your own — in 1 minute or less.
If you have questions or would like more information, please contact us.
Get the guide.
Dyadic Dynamics shows you how to dig into strategy, design a strategic outline, and convert the outline into a story that’ll let everyone know that play time is over. It offers some nice bonus content, too.
