Are Running and Marketing Strategies Similar?

I’m a distance runner. And a marketer. Who cares, right?

Surprisingly, distance running and marketing both have a lot in common - especially when it comes to building a strategy.

Typically, in running, you build your training plan to culminate in a large goal, usually a race. In marketing, it’s similar. You build your strategy around your end goals.

Let’s explore how these two seemingly disparate activities actually have a tonne in common. 

Goals matter

In both planning your running program, and your marketing strategy, goals matter. While in a running plan, you don’t have to have an end goal, it helps to visualize what you want, and that’s usually to run a race, improve your pace, get better at running hills, or whatever else strikes you as something in your running that needs work. Each aspect of your running plan will address the goal, or goals, you have in mind, and make it easier for you to get there.

Marketing isn’t much different. Every marketing strategy is built around fulfilling goals - be they anything from growing share of voice, to building a following, to gaining new customers. Ultimately, whatever the marketing goal is will determine the tactics you’ll use to deliver against those goals. 

Marketing isn’t a sprint

A marathon requires planning. You don’t get up and run 42.2 kilometres because you feel like it, and you don’t plan for a marketing sprint only to let it go after a few weeks or months. 

A strategy provides the framework for how to get to the finish line - be that the literal finish line, the end of a major campaign, or the end of a quarter or year. It allows you to know which milestones you need to hit, and when you need to hit them, to stay on track to reach your goal. 

Pacing is important - no matter if it’s a running plan or a marketing strategy.

You have to do the work

A strategy takes work. You can’t just build a strategy without considering the tactical execution of the plan you built. If you’re training, it means not only running, but also building in the cross-training, the rest days, the speed runs, and so on.

The same with marketing strategies - you need to build in the timing, the channels, the approach, the creative, and more. 

Monitor progress

When you plan a training strategy, checking in with yourself is part of the deal. How are you feeling? Are you injured? Do you need to cut back or add to your schedule? Is there anything missing?

It’s the same with marketing strategies - you can’t just set it and forget it. You need to monitor your progress. Are the metrics you plan on measuring against on track? Are you gaining engagement? Followers? New customers?

Monitoring your progress - in running or in marketing, means you can ensure things are on track, or address issues as they arise. The frequent check-ins with your running progress mean injury prevention; in marketing it means making sure campaigns stay on track and deliver against your goals.

Plan for hiccups

Any plan, just like any strategy, requires flexibility. No matter how much work you put into planning, deciding on cadence, thinking through next steps, and end goals, something is bound to happen.

Being able to update your training schedule to accommodate a week of rain when you’re running, or being able to account for an ad not performing as hoped are workable with a little flexibility. Accommodating changes in schedules, or changing up creative can be easier if you have back-up plans to add a few extra kilometres in another week, or have a couple of other creative options to fall back on.

No matter if you’re planning to run your first race, or deliver your millionth marketing strategy, the steps to both are really quite similar. As a runner and a marketer, I’ve been known to remind myself on countless occasions that no matter which - a race plan or a marketing strategy - I need to remember not to skip any of these steps in order to achieve success. A faster race time and marketing goals, both require planning to get to the finish you want.