Strategy is deciding what not to do

Strategy is deciding what not to do.

It sounds so simple.

Which is exactly why it's so hard.

We all fall victim to the next shiny thing fluttering across our screen (or inbox).

Yet life reminds us again and again that instant gratification only exists for girls on Instagram - and that hard work, consistently, over time, is the only way to achieve success.

All good things take time, but our time as marketer's is extremely limited (almost as limited as our prospects attention spans).

Because we are limited by time and budget we have to make the hard choice about what our brands will choose to engage in.

By the way, this post is not for the CMO of fortune 100. This post is for you. The marketer who is actually planning and just barely executing on the strategy (because of the aforementioned limitations).

I'm running into this issue at my own job.

It's a large, mature, B2B enterprise tech company and our intern keeps telling us to try snapchat.

Cool idea...but...maybe not for B2B enterprise tech.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong?

And that's the paradox of content strategy that we as marketer's have to navigate.

You can always find a way to make an argument in favor of or against using a new channel (or tweaking your strategy).

What I've realized over the last 9 months is that there are no silver bullets. No overarching objective marketing answers.

No shortcuts.

You have to dig in, set up shop, get to know your customers, your team, the market, and FIO (figure it out).

Use data when you can, your gut when you have to, runs tests like a scientists (because you are), and when things seem like they're crashing down around you, trust in validated learning.