Barrier Marketing - The Elephant in the strategy.

I believe strongly in writing strategy based on uncovering the barriers the organization has to bridge to be successful. Not everyone uses what I call "barrier marketing" but a whole pile of people do.

The premise is if you don't address the key obstacles a target audience has towards believing what it is you want them to believe/buy, then you are wasting your time (and money) engaging with them in any way about anything but the elephant in the room. It wasn't until this last 15 years of my marketing communication career that I became such a big believer of this approach to strategic planning. It was a central tenet at McCann Worldgroup when I worked there and it still drives my consulting practice today.

If you don't know what the barriers to success are for your organization, spend some time and uncover them. In the meantime enjoy this great post on discovering barriers and acting on them, not motivational statements, by UCLA Professor Richard Rumelt.

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/the_perils_of_bad_strategy?p=1