# Four choices, not a stream of ads > What marketing decides: whom you serve, what you offer, why they choose you and how they find you. Strategy vs tactics, and the one-page plan you build in this course. - Course: [Marketing Strategy: Who to Win and How](https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy.md) - Module: What does marketing decide, and against what? - Lesson 1/32, ~24 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy/four-choices-not-a-stream-of-ads ## Where you work **Alex Tutor:** Welcome to the course. **Klasna** is an online tutoring school from Kyiv: English for children and adults, exam math, programming for teens, and **Klasna Club**, a monthly speaking-practice subscription. Last school year it spent 2,850,000 UAH on marketing, in campaigns that never added up to a plan. **Alex Tutor:** You've just joined Klasna's small marketing team: Uliana, who runs it, you and two freelancers. This autumn you'll turn those campaigns into a one-page marketing plan for 2027, one row per module. Today: what marketing actually decides, and why a stream of ads isn't a strategy. ## Leo wants more ads **Leo:** Last October we put 240,000 into ads and got 60 new families. So this October we put in 480,000 and get 120. Uliana, can it be live by Monday? **Uliana:** Ostap, our ads freelancer, can do Monday. And I have more ideas: a creator campaign, a referral bonus, a short-video challenge. Honestly, though, I'm not sure which families any of them is for. **Sofia:** 240,000 for 60 families is 4,000 a family. Isn't doubling the budget the obvious plan? **Alex Tutor:** That's arithmetic about last October, not a plan. Doubling the money rarely doubles the families: the easiest ones tend to come first. The Finance for Product People course shows why the next families usually cost more. > **Exercise:** Leo's plan: "240,000 UAH brought 60 families, so 480,000 will bring 120." What is the main problem with it? ## Four choices **Alex Tutor:** Marketing decides four things. **Whom** you serve. **What** you offer them. **Why** they should choose you rather than whatever else they'd do. And **how** they find you, buy and keep buying. **Sofia:** And where do the ads go? **Alex Tutor:** Inside the fourth choice, as one of many ways to be found. Together the four choices make a **marketing strategy**. A banner, a discount or a post is a **tactic**: a way to carry a choice out. **Uliana:** So before Ostap picks an audience in the ad settings, we should already know whom we want and what we'll tell them. > **Exercise:** Match each statement from a draft plan with the marketing choice it answers. ## Strategy or tactic? **Sofia:** How do I tell a choice from a tactic when someone pitches me an idea? **Alex Tutor:** Ask what it says no to. A choice closes doors: if adults come first, some other group gets less money and attention. "Run more ads" says no to nothing. Tactics can change weekly; choices should hold for a year. **Uliana:** Then my calendar last year was all tactics: exam-season ads in February, a September restart push, posts when someone had time. Each one made sense. Together they never said whom Klasna is for. **Alex Tutor:** That's common, and it isn't wasted: those campaigns left data. We'll use it to make the choices properly. > **Exercise:** Which of these are **strategic choices** (they close doors) rather than tactics? Select all that apply. ## One page, eight rows **Sofia:** And the plan itself? Leo won't read a 40-page document. **Alex Tutor:** Nobody will. Ours is one page with eight rows, each a choice you can defend in a sentence or two. Each module of the course fills one row, and the last module puts the page together. > **The one-page marketing plan** > > | Row | The question it answers | > |---|---| > | 1. Situation | Whom do we really compete with: what would customers do instead? | > | 2. Segments | Which groups of customers need, buy and behave differently? | > | 3. First target | Whom do we serve first, and whom not? | > | 4. Position | Why should they choose us, and how do we prove it? | > | 5. Channels | How do they find us and buy, and what does each channel really cost? | > | 6. Messages and budget | What do we say, where, and with how much money and time? | > | 7. Offer and growth | What do we offer next, and where do we grow? | > | 8. Metrics and review | How do we know it worked, and when do we check? | **Alex Tutor:** The order matters. You can't choose channels before you know whom you want to reach, or write a message before you know why they'd choose you. **Uliana:** So Ostap's ad settings live in row 5 and my referral idea in row 6. Nothing gets thrown away, it just waits for its row. > **Exercise:** Put the rows of the one-page marketing plan in order. **Alex Tutor:** Now place the ideas already on the table. Where do they belong? > **Exercise:** Ostap, Klasna's ads freelancer, has ad audience settings ready, and Uliana, who runs the marketing team, has a referral-bonus idea, but the plan isn't written yet. What should happen to these ideas? ## Meanwhile, the ads **Leo:** Fine, a plan. But it's October. Do we switch everything off until it's ready? **Alex Tutor:** No. Keep the basics running: the site, answering enquiries, the posts that already work. Just don't double the budget on a guess. The plan will tell you where the next hryvnia should go. **Alex Tutor:** Leo's question is fair. What do you do with marketing while the plan is being written? > **Exercise:** It's October and the 2027 plan will take a few weeks. What should Klasna do with its marketing in the meantime? **Sofia:** So the strategy isn't the calendar of campaigns. The calendar comes after the choices. **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. And a plan isn't carved in stone: you'll review it every month and change a tactic when the numbers say so. The choices change less often, and only for a reason you can name. > **Exercise:** A marketing strategy is mainly a calendar of campaigns for the year. **Alex Tutor:** And once the page is written, is it fixed for the year? > **Exercise:** Once the one-page plan is agreed, Klasna should keep every choice and every tactic in it unchanged until next year. ## Your turn: a tactic in search of a choice **Uliana:** One more test. My idea: "Launch a referral bonus in November." How would that look on the plan? **Alex Tutor:** Don't throw it away. Ask which choice it serves: who should recommend Klasna to whom, and why would those people come? Write that choice first, the referral bonus after it. **Sofia:** Choice first, tactic second. And say what the choice rules out. **Alex Tutor:** Yes. It doesn't have to be the right choice yet; you'll test it in later modules. It has to be a choice. > **Exercise:** Rewrite the idea of Uliana, who runs Klasna's marketing, "Launch a referral bonus in November" for the plan in 2–3 sentences: first the choice it serves (whom it is for and why they would come), then the tactic, then one thing the choice rules out. > **Key ideas** > > - Marketing decides four things: **whom** you serve, **what** you offer, **why** they choose you over their alternatives, and **how** they find you and keep buying. > - A **choice** closes doors; a **tactic** (an ad, a post, a discount) carries a choice out. Test an idea by asking what it says no to. > - Spending more on last year's tactic is not a plan: results rarely grow in step with spend. > - The course builds a **one-page marketing plan**: situation, segments, first target, position, channels, messages and budget, offer and growth, metrics and review. **Alex Tutor:** Next time: the first row. Whom Klasna really competes with, and it isn't who the team thinks. - Next lesson: [Who you really compete with](https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy/who-you-really-compete-with.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.