The Immutable Strategic Hierarchy (and how it makes you a better marketer)

TL;DR: The Immutable Strategic Hierarchy is a six-level framework for creating outstanding marketing strategies. It covers foundational strategy, strategic narrative, brand point of view, positioning, messaging, and tactics. Embracing a strategic approach made me a better marketer, and I believe you will benefit as well.

Reading time: ~3 minutes

Strategy. Has there ever been a term that’s so heavily used yet so misunderstood?

Deeply understanding strategy and how to create and implement one is a super power.

The benefit that a good strategy brings to hitting a goal cannot be underestimated.

As a marketer, it’ll give you a big advantage in planning and creating tactical elements such as campaigns and even improving KPIs such as MQLs, conversion rates and revenue.

So today, we're going to explore the Immutable Strategic Hierarchy and how it can make us into better, more effective marketers.

There are six interconnected levels. By diving into each, you build a deeper understanding of your customer, your offering and crucially, how to win.

By the end of this newsletter, you'll have the tools you need to create a cohesive, powerful strategy that feeds into effective tactics that get results.

The Foundational Strategy

At the top of the Strategic Hierarchy sits our overarching strategy. It forms the bedrock of everything else that comes after it.

But how’s best to start and structure our strategy?

Roger Martin, one of the best business brains on the planet, wrote a book called "Playing to Win".

It contains a framework that outlines five essential questions that help to define your strategy

1. What is your winning aspiration? 
   This is your goal, the overarching objective you want to hit. Be specific!

2. Where will you play?
   This speaks to your segment, ideal customer, product/service category you’ll offer etc. This is the “playing field” you deliberately assemble that gives you the best chance of winning.

3. How will you win?
   This refers to how you show up on that field. Your value prop, perception you want to create, how you’ll differentiate and stand out on a strategic level are all included here.

4. What capabilities must be in place?
   New strategies often demand new capabilities. What do you need to excel at in order to win?

5. What management systems are required?
   What systems need to be in place for your strategy to be executed and managed effectively?

I cannot underestimate the importance of the quality of answers to these questions.

Don’t worry about getting them right first time. It’s a game of iteration. The key is market research and a customer centric approach to understanding customer needs.

The Strategic Narrative

Once your foundational strategy is in place, you need to develop a compelling strategic narrative.

The role of your strategic narrative helps to align you, your team and stakeholders on the story that will most influence your audience.

Andy Raskin's strategic narrative framework is a wonderful tool to use here and comprises of five key components:

1. A big, undeniable change in the world
   Name the big, undeniable shift in the world that creates both big stakes and huge urgency for your audience.

2. Set the stakes; the winners and losers
   Demonstrate how the change you cited above will create big winners and big losers.

3. Tease the Promised Land
   Present a “teaser” vision of the happily-ever-after that your product/service will help the audience achieve—what Raskin calls the Promised Land.

4. Introduce your solution as “magic gifts” for getting to the Promised Land
   As Raskin puts it “introduce your product or service, do so by positioning its capabilities like the lightsaber, wizardry and spells—as “magic gifts” for helping your main character (prospect) reach that much-desired Promised Land.“

5. Present evidence that you can make the story come true
   This is where you show that you’ve taken other's to the Promised Land and/or know exactly how to do it again.

Creating such a narrative develops a clear and compelling story that aligns a company vision and strategy with the aspirations of their customers and stakeholders.

It leads to buy in, engagement and value being created.

Brand Point of View:

Your brand's point of view is its unique perspective on the current state of affairs in relation to where you’re “playing” (i.e the context for this is your “where to play” segment of the foundational strategy).

It speaks to your opinion on what key problems are, what’s “broken” and critically, points to a better way. Your way.

Your point of view will play a huge role in helping you to differentiate from competitors. Especially if you’re in a crowded and competitive market.

As well as helping to foster a strong connection with your audience and create a lasting impression, a strong point of view acts as the fuel for content that you’ll publish.

This is where having a strong opinion and going to the edges with your point of view is an advantage. Why? Because it gets you more attention. Without attention, nothing else happens.

Positioning:

Positioning is about carving out a distinctive space for your brand in the market and the minds of your customers.

April Dunford's book Obviously Awesome is a great resource.

Her approach to positioning involves understanding your competitive landscape, identifying your unique attributes, and determining the best context for your offering.

This process allows you to differentiate your brand and effectively communicate its value.

The following questions can help you to get started:

If you didn’t exist, what would customers use? (competitive alternatives)

What features/capabilities do we have that competitors do not?

What value do these attributes enable for our customers?

Who cares a lot about this value?

What context makes the value obvious to our customers?

Doing this will give you a useful matrix from which to articulate a 1 page position, a paragraph and a sentence.

Messaging:

With your positioning established, it's time to distill your brand's essence into 3 to 5 key messages that your audience must know, understand, and believe.

This messaging will serve as the backbone for all of your communication efforts, ensuring consistency and clarity across all channels.

The truth is, if your customers knew and understood what you knew, selling to them would be MUCH easier.

This is where messaging comes into it’s own.

We deliberately choose our messaging to help us to engage our audience in a meaningful way, where we stand out and become their preffered choice.

The basis of this messaging is everything that has come upstream in our hierarchy. All of that works compounds and feeds into here.

Tactics:

Finally, tactics are the tangible elements that bring your strategy, narrative, point of view, positioning, and messaging to life.

In terms of connecting with our audience, they’re all we have. Our customers will never read our strategy, nor would they want to.

Tactics are the meeting points between us and our audience.

That’s why they’d better be good.

Fortunately, all of the work we do upstream helps our tactics to be impactful and genuinely engaging.

So, if you’re looking for better performing campaigns, a website that works the way you want and copy that pops, this is how we do it.

By aligning your tactics with the strategic hierarchy, you'll maximise their impact and drive meaningful results.

Remember

Each level of this strategic hierarchy builds upon the previous one, creating a cohesive and comprehensive approach to marketing.

Want to build a brand that tells a powerful story and stands out in the marketplace? This is how we do it.

Marketers that master this approach, that go deep into the strategic side of things, will be more effective and drive better results.

Your Action:

Take a look at your current marketing approach. Which elements of the strategic hierarchy in the context of your brand need the most work? Dive in. Get started. Iterate as you go.

To go deeper:

Want to dive deeper into these concepts? Check out the resources mentioned: "Playing to Win" by Roger Martin, Andy Raskin's strategic narrative framework, and "Obviously Awesome" by April Dunford.

In future newsletters, I’ll go deep into each of these sections, and include useful examples.

If you have any questions, let me know. I read every email I get and always respond with as much value as I can.

Thank you for reading!

Amir