The Gap Between Marketing and Strategy

When in-house marketers ask us, “can you help us create a marketing strategy?”, what they want is clarity. Something that makes everything feel less chaotic. 

They don’t want another document filled with tactics that lead nowhere. And yet, that’s exactly where so much marketing ends up.

In this article, we’ll explore why so much modern marketing feels busy but disconnected, what strategy actually means beyond a document or template and how businesses can close the gap between activity and real direction.

We’ve Confused Activity With Strategy

There’s a significant gap right now between marketing and strategic thinking. Most teams are busy, relentlessly busy. Posting, emailing, optimising, tweaking, testing. There’s movement everywhere, but very little direction (or meaningful results).

That gap is what many businesses feel, even if they can’t quite articulate it. Things are happening, but nothing feels joined up. This isn’t a motivation problem, or a creativity problem either.

It’s a strategy problem.

Strategy Isn’t a Document, It’s a Way of Thinking

A marketing strategy isn’t something produced overnight. It’s not a template, and it’s not a one-off exercise to tick off and forget. It’s a way of thinking.

It forces uncomfortable questions, such as:

• Why are we doing this?

• Who is it actually for?

• What are we trying to change?

• What are we willing to say no to?

This is where many brands get stuck.

Because strategy requires choices.
Choices mean trade-offs.
Trade-offs make people nervous.

It’s far easier to do a bit of everything than to commit to something specific.

Strategy Is Something We Already Understand

Strategy isn’t unfamiliar. It’s something everyone uses in their own lives. Daily routines aren’t random, food choices are influenced by goals, cars are chosen based on lifestyle, budget or identity, and career decisions reflect ambition or a desire for balance. These are strategic choices. They’re decisions made based on where someone wants to get to. A marketing strategy works exactly the same way. It’s simply applied to a business instead of an individual.

Real Strategy Starts With Looking Back

Before planning anything new, there needs to be clarity on what’s already happened.

• Which channels have been used?

• Where has the budget gone?

• Which tools and systems genuinely add value, and which remain out of habit?

This stage often gets skipped because it doesn’t feel exciting. But without it, planning becomes guesswork. Strategy requires honesty,  including admitting when something hasn’t worked, even if time, money or ego has been invested.

Analysis Is What Gives Strategy Depth

Understanding the past is only the start, next comes the wider landscape:

Competitors

Not just who they are, but how they behave. Where they’re strong. Where they’re weak. Where they dominate attention. Where they’re absent.

Customers 

Not surface-level personas, but real decision-making behaviour. What they care about. What they ignore. What frustrates them.

The Bigger Picture 

Economic pressures, cultural shifts, political moments, technological change. The forces that can either derail a brand or open unexpected opportunities.

This is the work that gives strategy substance. Without it, everything else is opinion.

Goals Prevent Strategy From Becoming Vague

Without a clear destination, strategy becomes a collection of well-worded statements that sound good but change nothing.

Think about what your business is actually trying to achieve. Is it driving growth, increasing retention, strengthening reputation or improving efficiencies?

Think about how you will measure success. If these questions can’t be answered clearly, no amount of marketing activity will fix the problem.

Planning Is Where Focus Shows Up

Only once the thinking is done should planning begin. This is where energy and budget are directed.
What gets prioritised and what gets left alone.

A good strategy isn’t about doing more, but about doing less, better. It means saying no to activities that don’t move the business closer to its goal, even if they’re popular or easy.

Why So Much Strategy Falls Into the Gap

Strategy often fails because it’s treated as a deliverable rather than a discipline. It gets created, presented and then quietly forgotten while teams revert to previous habits.

As McKinsey & Company has repeatedly highlighted, strategy breaks down when there’s no clear direction, no meaningful choices and no follow-through. Trying to please everyone usually results in standing for nothing.

Strong strategy is uncomfortable because it demands alignment, and alignment requires effort.

Where AI Fits In

AI is increasingly being positioned as a shortcut to strategy. It’s excellent at structure, frameworks, analysis, pattern recognition and speed. However, it cannot think creatively within context. It doesn’t truly understand culture. It doesn’t feel tension. It doesn’t recognise nuance. It doesn’t instinctively know when breaking the rules is the right move.

Strategy lives in those grey areas. AI can help organise thinking, but the thinking itself still has to come from people. Because the best strategies don’t just make logical sense, they feel right. When marketing simply looks like marketing, something important has probably been missed.

The Real Gap Isn’t Tools. It’s Thinking.

More platforms and dashboards won’t fix it. What’s needed is more strategic thinking. More willingness to slow down, to ask better questions, to connect ideas instead of chasing trends and to make deliberate choices instead of reacting to noise.

Brands that invest in strategy aren’t just investing in marketing, they’re investing in their future. In a world that feels louder and more automated by the day, a well-researched, well-defined strategy is what sets serious brands apart.

That’s the gap.

This piece is based on and inspired by “The Strategy Gap” by Hugh Griffiths, originally published on Medium.

Source: https://medium.com/@hrgriffiths/the-strategy-gap-724849e65c01

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