Strategy
Do you need a marketing strategy, or just more marketing?
Most growing brands have a direction problem, not a marketing problem. A two-sentence test to tell the difference, and what to do about each.
By Cass Dinsmore·
You need a marketing strategy, not more marketing, if you can’t explain in two sentences who you’re for, what you’re for, and what marketing is trying to accomplish this year. More marketing solves an execution problem. Strategy solves a direction problem. Most growing outdoor and adventure brands have the second one and keep buying the first.
I’m not interested in creating more marketing just to create more marketing. So before you hire the next agency or launch the next campaign, here’s how to tell which problem you actually have.
What’s the difference?
More marketing is more activity: more posts, another channel, a bigger booth, a new website, a rebrand. It’s the right answer when the direction is clear and the work just isn’t getting done.
A strategy is a set of decisions. Who is this for? What are we positioned to be for them that nobody else is? Which three things matter this quarter? What are we going to stop doing? It’s the right answer when the work is getting done and it still isn’t adding up.
The tell is what happens when a new idea shows up. With a strategy, you can say yes or no in a minute, because you know what you’re for. Without one, every idea is a maybe, and maybes pile up into fourteen half-finished campaigns.
The two-sentence test
Ask three people on your team, separately, to answer this: Who are we for, what are we for, and what is marketing trying to do this year?
If you get three matching answers in two sentences each, you have a strategy. Your problem, if you have one, is execution. Go get more marketing.
If you get three different answers, or three lists of activities, or a long pause and “I mean, we’re kind of for everyone,” you have a direction problem. More marketing will make it louder, not better.
Founders usually fail their own test too, by the way. They can answer it, but it takes twelve minutes, and it’s a different twelve minutes each time.
Why does more marketing feel like the answer?
Because it’s easier to buy. An agency can sell you a website. Nobody can sell you a decision.
It also feels productive. Activity is visible; direction isn’t. Launching a campaign looks like progress in a way that cutting eleven ideas never will, even though the cut is usually the more valuable move.
And in the outdoor world specifically, there’s a lot of good marketing to imitate. Great photography, great storytelling, great events. It’s tempting to do what the big brands do. But their activity comes from a strategy you can’t see, and copying the visible half gets you the cost without the compounding.
What does a real strategy include?
Not a 60-page deck. Usually a few pages, and every line is a decision.
Who it’s for. A specific person with a specific problem, not a demographic. Not “outdoor enthusiasts.” The 42-year-old founder of a guiding company whose marketing stopped making sense when she hit twenty employees.
What you’re for. The position you can hold that competitors can’t say “me too” to. This is the hard part, and it’s where asking better questions matters most. The real answer is usually one layer under the one you’d put on a slide.
How the pieces connect. Brand, website, content, events, partnerships, sales. Not as separate projects, but as one system with a job. Your tradeshow should feed your key accounts. Your content should make the sales conversation shorter. If you can’t draw the lines, the pieces are just pieces.
What matters now. Three priorities for the quarter, with a reason for each, and a clear list of what’s waiting.
What you’re not doing. If nothing got cut, it’s a wish list, not a strategy.
What do you do about it?
If you passed the test: protect the strategy and go execute. Hire the hands, buy the tools, send it.
If you didn’t: stop adding activity for a minute. Get the decisions made and written down. That’s the work I do as a fractional CMO, and the first four weeks of any engagement are exactly this: diagnose and clarify before anyone builds anything.
Either way, the goal is the same. A Monday morning where the team already knows what marketing is doing and why, and you don’t have to explain it again.
Not sure which problem you have? Let’s talk. Thirty minutes, a few questions nobody has asked you, and an honest answer.
Questions people ask
- What is the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan?
- A strategy is the set of decisions: who you're for, what you're positioned to be, which few things matter most, and what you're choosing not to do. A plan is the calendar of activities that carries those decisions out. A plan without a strategy is just a busy calendar.
- How do I know if my marketing is working?
- Only if you've defined what it's for. If the goal is qualified conversations with the right founders, count those. If it's memberships, count those. If you can't name the goal, no metric will tell you anything useful.
- Can a small team have a real strategy?
- Small teams need one more than anyone. A strategy is what lets three people say no to eleven good ideas and finish the three that matter.
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