Executing Your Communications Strategy: The Rest of the Story

In last month's newsletter we covered key reasons why communications strategy fails in execution. Most notably, execution is complex, and the strategy is typically merely adequate. However, these are not the only reasons that communications strategies fail.

EXECUTION IS MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO JUDGMENT

Execution is practical and is usually created by an artisan with tangible skills. The resulting execution is typically a printed piece or digital communications piece that is easily judged. It is well designed, well written, and well conceived, or it is not. These executions stand alone to be evaluated as freestanding expressions. Given these parameters, communications execution is easy to judge and criticize.

The opposite is also true: strategy is difficult to judge and critique. By its nature, strategy is not concrete. It is very much a provisional document that only promises concrete results. Strategy needs execution before it can be judged. Hence, the execution will take the brunt of the blame if the strategy-execution fails, as the strategy will likely be forgotten or hard to measure. (Oddly, if the execution is successful, the strategy is often credited with its success.)

STRATEGY IS COOL

Execution seems to attract less talent than strategy because strategy is considered more challenging and important than execution. Execution is looked upon as being beneath strategy. For this reason, strategy attracts more senior-level talent than execution. In many cases, after several years of working in the trenches of design and execution, people "graduate" to become strategists.

It hasn't always been this way, though. Just 10 or 15 years ago, design execution was king. Many things can be attributed to execution's decline in importance. One possibility is the proliferation of the Internet and, subsequently, the more "liquid" world of digital design. Additionally, strategy has risen in importance due to the ability of marketers to more accurately track prospects' activities and, eventually, ROI. Tracking Web clicks, form completions, downloads, etc. and directly tying those activities to purchases allows marketers to immediately see how effective their strategies are.

Because of the upward flow of seniority within marketing organizations from execution to strategy, the execution phase loses much of its guidance. The key executors need senior-level guidance to keep the work from derailing. Many times the so-called strategic minds don't bother helping the execution because they don't consider it worth their time.

CONCLUSION

Execution is much harder than commonly conceived. There are many pitfalls between a well-conceived strategy and a well-executed communications program. When working on your communications executions, respect them. Give them the time, attention, supervision, and staffing they deserve. For it is written (now): strategy is only as good as the execution.