Ask 17 people how to tell the difference between email marketing stratergy and tactics you’ll be no better informed than when you started. Try it yourself. I searched under ‘difference between email marketing strategy and tactics’ and gave up after clicking on 17 links.

Most irritatingly, the same examples were used in various links for both strategy and tactics. For instance, how would you classify personalising marketing emails? One suggested strategy, another tactics only if the strategy was to form stronger relationships with subscribers to email marketing lists. 

With such confusion being the norm I’d suggest replacing the words with more appropriate descriptions; ones which explain their purpose. Perhaps ‘overall plan’, shortly Plan, and ‘ways to implement it’, Implementation. Don’t try to convert the words to strategy and tactics in your mind.  

It can be seen that Implementation depends on the Plan but Plan is of little use without Implementation. Let’s take an example. 

One way of increasing the return on investment is to use all forms of interface with customers, whether subscribers or not, to further email marketing campaigns. As a Plan it is sensible; nothing succeeds like excess. The Plan should be presented to your team as being a requirement for every email marketing campaign. 

Ways of using the various options – Implementation – are then discussed but from the baseline of the Plan. Some common forms of interface are advertising, counters, billing, e-newsletters and trade fairs. There are more but let’s run with these.

The Implementation will include press releases at the most appropriate times, an advertising campaign in trade magazines, and branding on the stand at a trade fair. But what if the next trade fair predates the go-live date?

The essence of having a plan is that it must be flexible. You might think that this makes a Plan pointless, but no. The point is that if you do not, in this case, use a particular interface in the campaign, there must be a valid reason acceptable to all for not doing so. 

It doesn’t matter what you call procedures as long as they are clearly understood by those who have to work to them.