You know the phrases “strategy tax” or “strategy credit”?
They’re the idea that a company’s business strategy either exerts a cost on a particular part of the business, or creates an advantage.
Microsoft is a great example: Their profit margin goals are way higher than what the video game industry typically makes. So their Xbox division has undergone horrible, unethical, and industry-damaging layoffs and value destruction in service of meeting an impossible goal.
That’s a strategy tax.
Conversely, you can look at Nintendo. Their origins as a toy manufacturer, and their focus on the creative and the artistic side of their business, allow them to invest, long-term, in creative teams and artists. Those people have been able to continue to create profitable franchises despite an overall downturn in the video game labour market.
That’s a strategy credit.
What does this have to do with marketing?
Well, I want you to think about the current challenges you’re having with your marketing and ask yourself if you’re subject to taxes or credits you haven’t been consciously aware of.
For example, does your wide array of service offerings exert a tax on your ability to focus your marketing on a single element of value for your very best clients? Is the urge or incentive to feature a little bit of everything detracting from or diluting your true value?
Because businesses with a narrow offering and a specific target audience are granted a credit:
The ability to say what they do, what they don’t do, and who they do it best for. Over and over again, all the time.
Sometimes, marketing’s struggles don’t come directly from marketing.
They come from somewhere else, somewhere above marketing in the business organization stack.
An overall strategy that may be applying a tax, or granting a credit.
So think about that today, and ask yourself:
What advantage would I get if my business did less?
Kelford Inc. are content marketers for expert advisors. If you’re struggling with what to say and where to say it to attract your ideal clients, we’ll show you the way.