Tag: POST Analysis

“If only we went viral” and “If only we had a Facebook page and an Internet guru who knew how to make our RSS feed than we could get on the front page of TechCrunch” is something that is commonly heard.

The promise of social media was, to some, the magic promise of viral marketing.

It’s a false promise.

The fundamentals still matter.

Marketing is not about viral or social media – rather it’s about developing the proper strategy to meet your business goals.

What are you trying to get and what is the pathway to get there?

• Brand Awareness?
• Revenue Growth?
• New Sales?
• Thought Leadership?
• Repeat Business?
• Saved Customers and Recovery of Customers?
• Introduce A New Program?
• Donations?

Each goal has a different tactic to meet that goal.

Social media is not the answer, it’s a channel. One of my favorite strategic frameworks, Forrester’s POST Analysis, explicitly states that you pick the People (Audience), Objectives, and Strategy before choosing what technology to implement this with.

Before determining the tactic, you need to develop the strategy that maps the strategy and tactics to your goal. This, of course, requires knowledge of integrated marketing: branding/positioning, public relations, marketing, web development, SEO, and more. Yes, with the growing importance of digital platforms, technological literacy is a must for any marketing strategist, but it is not the goal – rather the tool to get it.

Jono Bacon, the Community Manager of Ubuntu, a popular Linux distribution, has a good framework for how to map strategy with tactics in his book The Art of Community:

OBJECTIVE:

GOAL:

SUCCESS CRITERIA:

• Item
• Item

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN:

• Item
• Item

OWNER:

GOAL:

SUCCESS CRITERIA:

• Item
• Item

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN:

• Item
• Item

OWNER: