With Super Bowl LIV taking place this weekend, everyone has got the fever. The San Francisco 49ers take on the Kansas City Chiefs in the 54th Super Bowl to decide who will be the NFL 2019 champion and winner of the 100th season in the sport.
“What does this have to do with marketing”, you might ask. Well, interestingly, whenever I teach marketing, I always use football as a reference. You see, communications in marketing is just like the road to the Super Bowl. Here’s how it works:

Identify the Goal
Every organization has to think of the key objectives that will help them reach their goal. From the perspective of the 49ers, they had to have a 15 and 3 record to at least qualify for the Super Bowl.
That is the objective for them, a specific numeric objective which helps you to reach your goal. The same applies for marketing in that you need to identify your goal for what you’re planning to do.

Implement the Strategy
From there, the strategy comes in. This can be seen in numerous ways for both football and marketing. If you go defensive, will you use zone defense, maybe man defense? If you put on special teams, are you going to go for a punting strategy? Which down are you on? How much time is left? Is a west coast offence strategy the best you can use in attack?
In terms of marketing, will you use social media as a strategy? Perhaps you would use your website or some digital advertising?

Put Tactics into Play
As far as football goes, this is the set of individual plays that go on throughout the game. In football, can you get by with a quarterback sneak or do you want your tight ends to block so the runner can run the ball?
Each and every strategy you implement in marketing needs to have its own set of tactics too. If you choose to go the social media route, do you plan to use influencers? If you go the website way, are you going to have a robust user interface to drive your goal?

This kind of methodology can be used in many walks of life, not just football and marketing. It’s how you craft good communications and excel at marketing; you treat it like football. Each avenue that you approach will have its objectives, strategies and tactics.