Finally, we can talk about marketing tactics!
We are Christina and Peter Pilarski, founders and leaders of CIPR Communications.
About 90 percent of our clients want to dive straight into tactics when they first start working with us. People already have ideas about what they want to focus on: building up social media numbers, pay per click, SEO, and so on. However, as you can probably tell from the fact that we are only starting to address tactics now, in the tenth podcast in this series, talking about any of these tools right from the beginning would be jumping the gun by several steps.
The dictionary definition of marketing tactics specifies that they are strategic actions taken to promote specific marketing goals, so there really is no way we can talk about tactics if we haven’t even established our goals. Having gone through all the steps from business plan to marketing strategy, we now can now start looking at the various tactics we have to hand, and deciding which of them are in line with marketing goals, and how we will implement them.
Tactics are about actions, not ideas
Of course, ideas are a big part of digital marketing, but by the time we get to talking about tactics, we have moved out of the space of concepts and into the realm of the tangible and actionable. This is what we mean when we talk about tactics: specific actions we can take to promote the strategies and ideas we have come up with during the planning stages: sending an email, posting on Facebook, executing a website design, writing a blog, etc. Tactics are the actions we take to execute a strategy. In the same way that a great strategy is not much use to anyone without a good tactical plan to implement it, tactics will not be as effective as they should be if they are not used in the service of a powerful strategy.
Once we’ve worked with a client to decide on a marketing strategy and marketing goals, we draw up a tactical plan (which we discussed in our previous episode), which lays out all the marketing tactics to be used in a specific campaign, and the time and manner in which they should be implemented. This is how we translate creative ideas into plans of action, and how we ensure that great marketing concepts yield real-world results for our clients’ businesses.
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Christina Pilarski
Christina Pilarski is CEO and co-founder of CIPR Communications, a digital PR, marketing, and AI consulting agency serving hospitality, tourism, and luxury lifestyle brands across North America. Before starting CIPR in 2010 with her life partner and business partner, Peter Pilarski, Christina led campaigns in a series of corporate roles and served as Special Advisor to the Minister at Alberta's Department of Tourism, Parks and Recreation. She now leads a team of 20+ staff and contractors across CIPR and its AI-focused division, the Tourism AI Network. Christina holds a BA with Honours and an MA in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary. Outside the office, she's a mom of twins and two dogs, based in Calgary.
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Peter Pilarski
Peter Pilarski is the Founder of Tourism AI Network and President of CIPR Communications. He helps tourism and hospitality organizations adopt AI strategically — from AI search visibility and custom tool development to team training and executive advisory. He is a sought-after keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, and AI advisor whose sessions blend practical frameworks with real-world results.
