Sun Tzu said in his Art of War: "Tactics without strategy are the noise before defeat." JDM combines our strategic services with tactical expertise to develop a marketing engine that makes our clients money.

Here's a few generalized strategies to wet your appetite. Click on "note" for execution tips and warnings.

The "Off-Peak" Strategy

For underdog businesses trying to compete with behemoths, the tendency is to increase their marketing spending and message frequency to match that of their larger competitors. This is, at best, inefficient, and at worst, a total waste.

Instead, consider an "off-peak" strategy.

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Example Note :: A Toy Manufacturer

This little business has some gargantuan competition from titans like Mattel, but Mattel spends almost all their yearly marketing budget during Christmas time and saves very little of it during the off-season times.

Trying to compete with Mattel during their surge in the Christmas season is a losing competition. Back-off your marketing expenditure during the toy rush season in November and December and surge in the middle months when the "big dog" is resting.

Think of it as the marketing equivalent of losing the battle to win the war.

The "Price Premium"

For homogeneous products or services, careful consideration should be paid to your pricing strategy. As a pricing strategy, the Price Premium will position your product or service as superior to your competition.

Who doesn't want to be "premium" if you can?

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Example Note ::

It seems a little counter-intuitive that increasing the price would actually win you more business rather than less. Take, for example, a homogeneous market like Vodka.

All Vodka is essentially the same, however the price ranges all over the place. Some people are so Brand loyal, they will pay outrageous prices for their Vodka of choice. This is striking to some given that during a blind taste test, very few people actually pick their beloved label by taste.

Given a homogeneous market, there is little to inform the buyer about which is the superior or inferior product. That is, except for the price.

"Teaser" Campaigns

The "Teaser" can be a powerful way to draw attention to a new offering even before the product or service is ready for mass production or distribution.

This gradually unfolding marketing campaign is intended to intrigue the audience. Utilizing a series of marketing touches, this campaign brings increasingly complete parts of the message with each passing touch until the climax and completion of the campaign.

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Execution Note ::

Each touch should contain a part of the overall message that can both stand alone and work to make the whole more impactful. It's also important to be sure that each touch is through a different medium to maximize more than just frequency, but reach. To really kick it up a notch, consider alternative or emerging marketing mediums like mobile marketing, personalized voice mails, out-of-home, etc. Don't be afraid to experiment.

Most important in the execution of a teaser marketing campaign is to make sure that after the campaign has reached its climax there is some huge payoff (yes, we're still talking about marketing).

The fastest way to waste all that teaser marketing money is to end the campaign with a whisper and not a bang.

The "Thought-Leader" Play

The Knowledge or 'Thought-leadership' strategy is a powerful one. In this play, you position the company as one that not only knows the market space better than anyone else, but also knows you, the consumer, and how to satisfy your needs.

Proven in the world of B2B marketing, The 'Thought-leadership' campaign has been show to dramatically shorten the sales cycle.

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Note ::

The trick is to provide your prospects (and let's not forget current customers) with the very latest in industry trends, research, and best practices.

To make these resources valuable to your audience, consider the following:

Generate a number of different resources on topics like industry trends reports, best practices white papers, and tips articles
Update your content often. Monthly updates are ideal.
Resource/download section on your website
Make downloads fill out a form (but only once)
Tie the end of each report or article to a pain that your product or service alleviates, but be sure it doesn't come across as to 'salesy' however.

The "Power Play"

The Power Play is the last-ditch, off-the-wall promotional marketing strategy that's sure to make your audience (and, ideally, the media) stand up and pay attention.

Just remember, you have to think big—really big.

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Example Note ::

Here's an example of a successful Power Play Taco Bell ran a few years ago.

If a NASA satellite, which was due to fall back to earth during the promotion term, hit the large Taco Bell platform floating in the middle of the ocean, everyone on earth got one of their new tacos FREE.

The satellite ended up landing nowhere near the platform, but it was a success nonetheless. It garnered world-wide press attention as all eyes were fixed on the floating, Branded platform.

The key to the "Power Play" is thinking big. The larger the net lifetime value of a single new customer, the larger (and more attention-worthy) the promotion should be.

"Push/Pull" Strategy

The Push/Pull Play, basically pushes your channel partners to the right buyers and pulls the right buyers to the appropriate channel partners.

Sounds easy, but it's one of the trickiest plays you can run.

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Note ::

In a Push/Pull Campaign Strategy, the object is to push your distributors or channel partners toward the target end buyer while also pulling that target end buyer toward your channel partners.

Unfortunately, believe it or not, this strategy is actually easier to explain than to execute.

The "PR Play"

The PR Play positions the business offering in the public eye. Using the press and other public relations mediums, it cuts through the clutter by not appearing to be "self-serving" like advertising often does.

It also offers an alternative to the marketing adage: "Pay for advertising. Pray for Publicity."

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Press Release Headlines Note ::

DON'T waste your PR money on releases with headlines like:

Company offers 20% off during the month of April.

A press release needs to be informative, not salesy. Leave the sales-speak to the ads.

Company fixes known problem with product.

This begs the question: "What about the problems with product the company doesn't know about?"

Product Found to Cure Cancer (or Boredom Anyway).

Off-the-wall headlines like this are best left to the tabloids and the tabloids are better than you at startling headlines anyway. Be informative. This is no place to showcase a dry sense of humor.

DO consider press releases with headlines like:

Company negotiates deal with strategic partners. Passes Savings on to Its Customers.

Company is Successful in Patenting its Manufacturing Process.

Company Announces Jane Doe as their new CEO.

The "Slander" Campaign

Slander is usually a dangerous play for marketers and a profitable play for lawyers.

If successful, it can pay off huge dividends, but tread softly—you wouldn't like it if it were exercised on you...

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Note ::

Mention your competition. Don’t promote them

They say there is no such thing as bad publicity. There is a tendency to communicate entirely too much about your competition. This amounts to promoting your competition. Instead, promote the fact that there exists a competition in the marketplace. Mention the players and move on.

Compare don’t contrast

The heart of the Slander Campaign Play is to compare yourself to the competition whom you’ve publicly named. Shy away from contrast, or showing your differences. If you are really so different, why are you competing at all. For example, company X and you share many of the same focuses on product quality, production time, and price point. The one clear difference is your company’s core value, say, customer satisfaction or support.

Contextualize your strengths

Slander Campaign plays can often focus on the negative. Instead, their value lies in this strategy’s ability to showcase your strengths in the context of your competition. The key is context. For example, the difference between Pioneer speakers and Pioneer Elite speakers is the same as Lexus made by Toyota.

Don’t lie—Identify

Identify, specifically, the weaknesses in your competition. The more specific you are and the more evidence you have to support it, the less room your competition has to retaliate. For example, "company X’s products are returned for service an astonishing 56% of the time according to a recent Consumer Reports study." Citing an independent research study is the easiest way to accomplish this, but customer testimonials work well too—particularly if the testimonials focus on the reasons your customers switched to you from a direct competitor.

Check out this perfect example of a "Counter-Slander" Campaign.