Strategy and Tactics

Strategy and tactics are the last key terms we need to better understand the RACE framework. Strategy represents the path you intend to take to achieve a specific objective. This aligns with Jain’s (1993) understanding of strategy as “the pattern of major objectives, purposes and goals, and essential policies and plans for achieving those goals, stated in such a way as to define what business the company is in or is to be in.”

In this course, we are going to emphasize how, to implement a strategy and achieve specific objectives, a company deploys tactics—tools used to meet objectives. Examples of tools we will discuss include banner advertising campaigns, search ad campaigns, and the use of content marketing on social media.

Let’s combine the vocabulary we just introduced in an example.

Objective

• Increase sales through our eCommerce platform by 10% within the next six months.

Tactics

• Search advertising pay-per-click (PPC) campaign using specific keywords, with a budget, time frame, etc.
• Social media campaign using the Facebook brand page, with marketing material

KPIs per tactic

• Search advertising: clickthrough rate (CTR), bounce rate
• Social media campaign: clickthrough rate, share ratio/amplification rate

Targets per tactic

• Search advertising: CTR of XX%, bounce rate of XX%
• Social media campaign: CTR of XX%, share ratio of XX%

We can now turn our attention to the RACE framework.