Many marketers think that in order for their business to gain all the benefits that marketing has to offer, they need to include everything possible in every marketing campaign, plan or activity. That viewpoint is incorrect and this article will help you understand why.

1. The Kitchen Sink Method Is NOT Marketing Strategy
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Overview
Many marketers think that in order for their business to gain all the benefits that
marketing has to offer, they need to include everything possible in every marketing
campaign, plan or activity. That viewpoint is incorrect and this article will help you
understand why.
The Uniqueness of Marketing
Marketing is a unique profession. It is also critical to business success. When done
properly, marketing has the ability to drive awareness, drive new leads and prospects,
as well as drive new business. However, when done poorly it can have the opposite
effect.
Depending on what business goal needs to be accomplished, marketing may combine
elements from numerous areas including communications, PR, advertising,
broadcasting, trade shows, writing and content creation, training, sales enablement,
graphics creation, audio, video and much, much more. Because of this, the marketing
professional has the flexibility to choose from a huge palette of potential tools that can
be used to drive a desired outcome.
However, that same flexibility is also one of the main problems with the marketing
profession.
Why?
Because too many marketers use what I call the “kitchen sink method”. This “method”
tries to include as many different activities/channels/tools as possible into each and
every marketing program or campaign, whether or not they make sense or will actually
help accomplish what needs to be done. Oftentimes this is done because the marketer
does not understand their customer, their market, their competitive situation, or worse,
the business goal that needs to be accomplished.

2. Let’s face it, many marketers today have become so obsessed with the latest new
“thing” that they forget the basics. Instead of taking time for the necessary due
diligence, they focus on the latest marketing buzzword to the exclusion of everything
else. Buzzwords like “gamification”, “influencer marketing”, “mobile marketing” and
“social selling” have become the go-to marketing approaches for too many marketers.
But in reality, those are tactics – they were never intended to be used solely as
standalone marketing tools in place of a marketing strategy. They’re intended to be
used as actions that support an overall marketing strategy.
And therein lies the problem.
The Kitchen Sink Is Not a Strategy
This “kitchen sink” mentality has become so pervasive because many marketers don’t
know how to develop a marketing strategy that understands what the goal of marketing
is. They don’t know how to determine what the proper actions, channels and tools are to
reach those goals. They don’t understand that prior to beginning the development of
any marketing activity, research must be done based on the business goal that needs to
be accomplished, followed by the development of a marketing strategy that provides
clarity and direction to guide the development of the marketing tactics. Instead, the
assumption is made that by just including everything in their campaigns and programs,
a strategy is not necessary and their marketing will be successful by default and have
positive results.
If only it were that simple.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the marketing profession provides the
opportunity to become involved in numerous different specialty areas. It allows
marketers to be exposed to and work with many different creative areas that
professionals in other roles will never see. And one of the biggest differentiators
between marketing and other professions is that marketing not only allows out of the
box thinking, it actively encourages it.
This level of flexibility is why so many people think that marketing is easy to do.
However, they don’t understand that flexibility must be paired with an understanding of
the business, coupled with the knowledge of appropriate tactics and the discipline to
choose the right one(s) in order to drive business success. In other words, strategy.
Marketing Strategy vs. The Kitchen Sink
Developing the marketing strategy is and always should be the first step in the creation
of any marketing activity. The reason is that unless a marketing strategy is developed,
putting marketing activities in place is simply tactics; it’s nothing more than a collection
of tactical actions. There is no plan to coordinate or manage them, no way to effectively
track or measure them, no way to judge their effectiveness, and no way to determine if
they drive the business towards a desired outcome.

3. In other words, marketing without strategy is the kitchen sink method in action.
Developing a marketing strategy requires attention to detail that borders on the
obsessive; it’s not just something you can create in a few minutes. Once you
understand what the goals are, then you must determine how your marketing will
accomplish them. This is the basis for creating your marketing strategy.
Having a marketing strategy means taking the necessary time to understand what the
business goals and objectives are prior to developing marketing tactics. It means
understanding how marketing can support those goals and objectives and help
accomplish them. It means taking time to do the due diligence necessary to understand
who the target customers are, what the best way to reach them is, and what the
competitive situation is. All of these steps are required to be able to develop a marketing
strategy that works.
Creating a marketing strategy means determining what the right channels are, what the
interplay between channels will be (if any), what marketing tools and techniques will be
used, and most importantly, what the KPIs and metrics are developed to track and
measure the effectiveness of the marketing. Without metrics you can’t prove whether
your tactics worked or not or whether your goals and objectives have been
accomplished.
Once the marketing strategy has been created, then and only then do you develop the
tactical plan of action that supports the strategy. It is only at this point that you begin to
determine what actions need to be taken and how they support the strategy.
Compare this prescriptive approach to the kitchen sink approach.
Summary
By applying a more structured approach to developing a marketing strategy first instead
of taking the kitchen sink approach, your marketing will be more effective and you will
be able to accomplish the goals that you’ve set.
© 2019 – Richard Hatheway, Catalyst Strategic Marketing
All rights reserved.